Israel's Historic Peace Treaty with the UAE and Bahrain

What should we make of the historic Abraham Accords Peace Treaty? Is this something to rejoice over? Preparing to wait for the Antichrist. It's time for the Line of Fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Michael Brown is the director of the Coalition of Conscience and president of Fire School of Ministry. Get into the Line of Fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

That's 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Hey friends, it is thoroughly Jewish Thursday.

This is Michael Brown here. Just want to alert you, I'm not taking calls today. Oh, I feel the grovel. You can always call in with a Jewish-related question on Friday's broadcast, on tomorrow's broadcast, but not taking calls today. I've got a lot of things to talk about, and I did ask for folks to post some questions on Facebook yesterday, and I'm grabbing some of those Jewish-related questions as well. But we're going to talk about the Abraham Accords. And I want to come back one more time to this question about Jews and the slave trade, simply because it is a widely circulated lie in different parts of the world that in particular has impacted many black Americans through the Nation of Islam.

And it's an insidious lie that the Jews played a major role in the terrible African slave trade. So I want to come back with a little more data and a little more follow-up, just to lay out, expand on some of the things that we've talked about in recent weeks. Okay, I have an article, maybe you've seen it already, entitled Historic Peace Treaty or Preparation for the Antichrist. And I begin the article by saying for evangelical Christians, it's difficult to look at major developments in the Middle East without wondering about biblical prophecy. Should we rejoice over the historic peace treaty between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain, or is this leading to a dangerous, false peace that will only hasten the reign of the Antichrist?

So come on, tell me that you haven't thought about that as an evangelical Christian, as an evangelical follower of Jesus, or maybe just a Christian from different backgrounds that's into Bible prophecy and stuff like that. You wonder, historic Middle East peace, President Trump saying a bunch of other nations could follow, five, six, seven other Arab Muslim nations could follow? Come on, this never happened. So first, let's just understand how major and how historic this is. So if you miss anything that I say, or you want to take down notes, it's in my article.

You can read on our website, s.dr.brown.org or stream.org or other outlets that many other outlets that carry our articles. But first thing I point out is this. When was Israel formally established as a nation? 1948, declared in 47, 48 officially a nation. And how long was it before one of the surrounding nations, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, some of these are directly around Israel, some in the proximity. How long was it? A month, a year, two years, five, 10, 20, before any of these nations made peace with Israel.

How long was it? From 1948 until 1979. Thirty-one years.

Thirty-one years. And it was Egypt and the courageous Prime Minister, Anwar Sadat, that led that campaign and was ultimately assassinated. That was one reason he was assassinated for making peace with Israel. That's how controversial it was.

It was one of the reasons. Thirty-one years before any of those nations signed a peace treaty recognizing Israel. How long after that before the next? You say, well, it must have been like one after another.

No, 16 years. So from 1979 until 1995, and then it was Jordan. Jordan was the second one.

And you say, well, then it followed suit after that. Since Jordan, nobody. Did you understand that? Since 1995, no other Arab Muslim nation in proximity of Israel, not a single one of them, has entered into a peace treaty with Israel.

None of them. Now, think of this. President Trump moves the embassy to Jerusalem. This was law. This was in the Clinton administration.

This became law sanctioned by Congress that we will move our embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which is Israel's capital. Did Bill Clinton move it? No. There was a clause that said you can delay it six months, kept being delayed six months. Did George W. Bush move it?

No. Eight years didn't move it. Did Barack Obama move it? Eight years didn't move it. President Trump moves it.

What does it lead to? It's going to be all out war. It's going to be all out chaos. The whole world is going to shake. The Muslim world is going to be upheaval.

That's it. Israel is going to come under attack. Did that happen?

No. Some resistance, some protest, very minor. He even recognizes Israel's right to the Golan Heights, OK? Of course, Israel's had that since the Yom Kippur War, well, the first six-day war.

And then afterwards, Israel gaining that territory. And if you ever go to Israel, join us in a tour. In fact, this March, you can join us as our next tour.

We had to put it off from May of this year, then October, put it off to March of next year, tour of a lifetime. Find out about it on the website, AskDrBrown.org, right on the home page. Find out about it. But if you go on a tour, if you actually go where you go up to Golan Heights, think, yikes, there isn't a Syrian control.

And you could just look down and shoot at farmers. I mean, so so Israel rested that back. And that's been essential security. Well, it was only under the Trump administration that was officially recognized that that lead to an all out war with the surrounding nations.

No. Instead, we have not one first United Arab Emirates, but now two United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signing peace treaties with Israel. This is massive and historic. And if a bunch of others follow suit, what they're saying is to the Palestinians, you are our brothers.

You are partners in the faith and we care about you, but you are out of step with reality right now. And and and even though in our treaties we are speaking about your well-being and a peaceful solution or two state solution, whatever it is, the fact is they're saying we're moving on. We're going to enter into economic relations with Israel for the mutual prosperity of our nations. And we're going to stand together with Israel against our common enemy, Iran, now in allegiance with Turkey.

That's what they're saying. So, again, nineteen forty eight to nineteen seventy nine. I remember watching Omar Sadat speech as he spoke in Arabic and it was translated and I was immersed, of course, in Semitic language study. I was in grad school at that point and had probably three years of classical Arabic and of course, majored in Hebrew. And and I remember understanding a good amount of I remember going to a class and one of our professors said, he goes, Hebrew scholar.

He said, I could understand 75 percent of his speech just knowing Hebrew so well in other Semitic languages. But I remember watching the speech and amazing history being made. And then Jordan, 16 years later, it's been twenty five years. Can you imagine with the media's love for President Obama? Remember, he got a Nobel Peace Prize just basically being elected as our first black American president, which was a major accomplishment, a major theme in our history for sure. But he hadn't really done anything when he got the Nobel Peace Prize. Can you imagine if this has been President Obama now, the level of praise that would be coming his way and the level of celebration and adulation. And we've never had a moment like this, even if it was George W. Bush, there would not be the downplaying by some.

I mean, some on the left are so hostile to Donald Trump that their main talk was, well, they didn't socially distance or wear masks. Seriously. So this is major. This is historic. So I lay that out in my article, I explained it, and then I explain why some have referred to it in the ways that they have. For example, of Boaz Bismuth in the Times of Israel. This was the title of his article, The Event That Will Change the History of the Middle East.

Yeah, that was his title of it. The Event That Will Change the History of the Middle East. And this is what he wrote. Even in a pandemic, we can allow ourselves to rejoice at the first open, warm peace relations between Israel and Arab countries and ignore the cynics who are seeking to downplay the importance of today's events.

Wow. So we understand the Palestinians are not happy with this arrangement. And here's an article on Al Jazeera.com. Palestinians protest Arab normalization deals with Israel. Palestinians say only Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories can bring Middle East peace after Bahrain, UAE deals.

But they know this is not looking good for them. In other words, these nations are saying right now there are more important issues to us than the Palestinians living in harmony and prosperity side by side with the Israelis. And as this is happening, as the peace treaties are being signed, what does Hamas do? They shoot rockets, a couple of rockets into into Israel, one intercepted, one injuring some people. So Hamas is saying, OK, you're signing a peace treaty. We're attacking. We're attacking.

And that's just not working right now. So I explained that in the article and and one of the official documents states this. So this is the king of Bahrain. He says that this development, I'm quoting this, this development will help lead to a future in which all peoples and all faiths can live together in the spirit of cooperation and enjoy peace and prosperity, where states focus on shared interests and building a better future. Now, here's where many evangelical Christians will begin to wonder.

OK, hang on, hang on. Is this part of a false peace? Is this part of a false peace that will lull Israel to sleep, that will create a sense of well-being? The nations around will say all is well, everything is OK. And then sudden destruction comes.

In other words, is this preparing the way for the Antichrist? So in my article, I quote from First Thessalonians, chapter five, verse three, where Paul wrote, while people are saying peace and safety, destruction will come on them suddenly as labor pains on a pregnant woman and they will not escape. Then Ezekiel 38, 11 and 12, the Gog Magog passage, Ezekiel 38 and 39, where the hostile nations will say this about Israel. I will invade a land of unwalled villages. I will attack a peaceful and unsuspecting people, all of them living without walls and without gates and bars.

I will plunder and loot and turn my hand against the resettled ruins and the people gathered from the nations rich in livestock and goods living at the center of the land. So if you've been to Israel with me or another trip, the idea of Israel being, quote, a peaceful and unsuspecting people, all of them living without walls, without gates and bars, you think, no way. Unless there was a lulling to sleep of the nation, unless these peace accords, which are so historic and so major and a massive accomplishment by President Trump and if it had been President Obama, I'd say it was a massive accomplishment by him.

Nothing like this has happened. And according to Jared Kushner, was Trump saying, basically, let's think outside the box because nothing else has worked. Let's approach this differently. And somehow it's brought people together. And again, we say the devil's in the details. What are all the details of this?

How it's going to work itself out? Could it be that the greatness of it, the magnitude of it is the very proof that we should be suspicious and that this is preparing the way for the antichrist? How should we view it? Welcome, welcome to Thoroughly Jewish Thursday.

That music reminds you. Yes, it is Thoroughly Jewish Thursday. Shortly, I'm going to be going to questions, Jewish related questions that were posted on Facebook yesterday. So I'm not taking your calls today, but we should be live tomorrow from Nashville, actually. I'm scheduled to be flying over to Nashville to be on Governor Huckabee's show on TBN to talk about evangelicals at the crossroads. My latest book will be past the Trump test, but we should be live from Nashville Friday. That's the plan.

All going well. And you can call them with Jewish related questions then as well. But back to this issue of the Abraham Accords, President Trump said what? This is the dawn of a new Middle East. And again, all this is in my article on the subject, which is on Stream.org.

Or, of course, as always, on our website, AskDrBrown.org. So read the article, dig in there, share it with others. So if it's the dawn of a new Middle East, I mean, should we look at it with some suspicion? And maybe it is preparing the way for the antichrist and maybe it's leading to a false peace. And what do you know about the prophetic scripture?

So here's my view. I've been studying the scriptures almost 50 years now. I haven't focused primarily on end time prophecy, but certainly studied that issue quite a bit over the years.

I cannot tell you if this is preparation for the antichrist. Oh, you should know. I read the same Bible you read. And, hey, 1979, that's a long time ago, our largest demographic, our single age group that follows us most on social media is between 25 and 34. Of course, we have a ton that are younger and a ton that are older.

That largest group is between 25 and 34. OK, so if you were born in 1979, you would be 41 today. So our largest demographic group was born after that peace treaty.

What if people that, oh, this is it, beginning of the end, antichrist. Oh, 1979, come a long way since then. And then 1995, if you are younger than 25, you were born after 1995. So after Jordan signed the treaty and we've still had all this time go by. So you might have a bunch of nations sign on and then we might have 20 or 30 years of that's the norm. And then more may sign on. And then it may be 20 years from then. And we may enter into a false peace.

And that leads the way into the antichrist. Or it could be that things will accelerate in the next two or three years. I do not know. And if you're absolutely sure and you've got it all worked out, then I just ask you, please tell me when you predicted this specific event with UAE and Bahrain being the next nations to follow after Egypt and Jordan. Just please show me the teaching online six months, a year or five or 10 years ago where you predicted this order and said these things would happen. And then give us the time frame for what's coming after.

So we'll know how seriously to take your predictions. Now, maybe you do have that insight. I'm saying I don't know.

So how do I view these? Well, I have the question mark in the back of my mind. Will this lead to a false peace, false sense of security? But here's what I do know.

Here's what I do know. Jesus said, blessed are the peacemakers. Right? Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Jesus did say that Paul urged us as much as possible to live at peace with all men.

Right. And it's better for Israel to have friends than enemies. I remember decades ago in the 80s, I asked an Israeli friend of mine, messianic Jewish leader. I said, what do you make of the bless Israel movement? There are a lot of churches. They want to bless Israel, but they don't really evangelize.

And what do you think of it? He said, I'd rather they bless Israel than curse Israel. It's not ideal, but rather they're blessing us than cursing us.

And here's the other thing. Look at this passage in the book of Isaiah. Isaiah Chapter 19, verses 24 and 25, all in my article that I've referenced. It says that in that day, God's going to bring judgment on Egypt. It speaks of Egypt and Assyria, which is today Iraq. In that day, Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing on the earth. The Lord Almighty will bless them, saying, Blessed be Egypt, my people, Assyria, my handiwork, and Israel, my inheritance. And then Isaiah 40 to 11 and Isaiah 67 speak about other Arabian nations. Kedar mentions that, which could be Saudi Arabia, turning to the God of Israel through the Messiah. And then we know, according to Isaiah 2, 1 through 4, that the day will come when all the nations of the earth will come streaming to Jerusalem to learn from the God of Israel. So I don't know if this is leading to a false peace that will actually ultimately be dangerous and usher in the Antichrist.

I don't know. What I do know is we should strive to be peacemakers. What I do know, it's better if people are trying to work with Israel rather than kill the people of Israel.

I know that. And I know that ultimately this is a reminder of the day that there will really be an Abrahamic outpouring. And there will be a turning of many Muslim individuals and maybe even whole nations turning to the God of Israel through Jesus the Messiah. So wherever this particular treaty leads, A, it is a massive historic accomplishment, B, it's always good to seek to make peace, and C, that it be a reminder of what is to come.

All right. I want to grab some of your questions, and then I'm going to go back to some slave trade issues to further help those of you who struggled with some of the lies from the Nation of Islam. Stephen and Sarah asked this. If Jesus was God as well as man, how could Satan expect to tempt him? I consider it a Jewish-related question because Jews use it as an objection to Christianity. The answer is because he was God and man. In other words, because he was fully human.

So ask yourself this question. Did he get physically tired? Yes.

Did he get physically hungry? Yes. Did he experience human emotions? Yes. Could he rejoice? Yes. Could he grieve? Yes. Was he angry?

Yes. So if he could experience all those things, then he could experience temptation. Plus, Satan does not have perfect understanding of everything going on. Satan can be blinded to certain things. And Satan is also Satan, meaning, just like a human being can do something stupid, they may even know it's stupid, but they're compelled to do it.

They're driven to do it because of their sinful, fallen nature. Well, it's the same thing even all the more, you could say, with Satan, who is the father of lies and the father of murder, because that's who he is. And when Jesus is hungry, right, he can tempt him. Hey, son of God, go ahead.

Let's work a miracle. Turn these stones into bread so you can eat because you're hungry. That's why Hebrews 2 said he was at all points tempted as we were yet without sin. So because he was fully human and he experienced human emotions and human feelings of tiredness or weariness or these other things that human beings would feel. So he could be tempted just as we were because he was fully human. And by his divine nature, he said no to those things. Matthew asks, how do we know which Old Testament prophecies about Israel referred to the spiritual faith offspring of Abraham opposed to the physical offspring of Abraham?

Thanks. Any promises that were given to the physical people of Israel about physical things in this world, like the land of Israel and things like that, were specific covenantal promises to a specific people living in a specific place, therefore, to the physical descendants of Israel. Any promises that God would preserve us in the midst of exile and judgment around the world are promises given to the physical people of Israel. What do the spiritual children of Abraham receive? They don't receive the inheritance of the physical land of Israel. In fact, they inherit the whole earth.

But what do they inherit? Paul says in Galatians 3, they receive the promise of the Spirit. They receive the blessing of justification by faith and forgiveness. So all promises speaking about our spiritual relationship with God and spiritual blessings through the Messiah pertain to all of Abraham's children, circumcised and uncircumcised, all those who are believers and children of faith. But the specific physical promises that God gave to physical Israel apply there. In my book, Our Hands Are Staying with Blood, if you don't have that, the new edition came out one year ago, and honestly, I wish I could push a button and get into the hands, hearts, minds of every believer in the world and every Christian leader in the world. But we have a chapter, Thou Shalt Not Steal, saying you can make spiritual application of any promise. You can say just as God promised Israel this, we make spiritual application.

Just don't steal the promise from them. These are great questions. I appreciate it. Let's see, this is another Matthew.

Hi, Dr. Brown. Has anybody gauged the general mood of the Arab population in Israel regarding the recent peace deals brokered with Bahrain and the UAE? Also, as a Jewish person yourself with a wider, more prophetic insight, you see this peace process as something that would promote some good long term solutions, even if they don't ultimately last.

Thank you and God bless. So building on what I've just said, answering the second question first, I do believe a lot of practical good can come out of this. I believe there can be a united front standing against the terrorism of Iran. I believe that there can be economic benefit to to all involved. I believe that some of Israel's technologies will be of benefit to the Muslim Arab world, you know, health technologies and other things like that. And to the extent a barrier is dropped that maybe the next generation will grow up without so much hostility and hatred towards the Jewish people. Even if it doesn't lead to ultimate peace, there can be positive benefits in the short term. Again, all the details need to be analyzed and broken down.

And I don't have the data to do that yet. That has to be looked at and reviewed as to the Arab sentiment within Israel. So, of course, the the Arab Palestinians living in what's called the West Bank and Gaza Strip, they're very upset with this.

This to them is a betrayal. But the Arab population, the two million plus living in Israel proper right now, I have not read about that. Will they be more in solidarity with the Palestinians saying you neglected our brothers? Will they see this as a greater time of peace, prosperity and harmony? Of course, the Muslim world and Israel. That's a great question.

I'm going to have to dig into that one to find the answer for that. All right. We'll be right back.

Welcome. Welcome to Thoroughly Jewish Thursday, this is Michael Brown, delighted to be with you, not taking your calls today. So much that's happened in the Jewish world. Abraham Accords, the peace treaty, so much we wanted to talk about as we dive in now to the second half of the broadcast. I want to revisit the subject and I want to go back to some information that is circulating widely online that began with a really duplicitous, misleading book put out by the Nation of Islam on the so-called secret relationship between blacks and Jews, alleging in the first volume of a three volume series that Jews played a disproportionate role in the slave trade, the horrible African slave trade that dominated our early American history.

And you say, why keep coming back to this? Well, the lies are out there widely. I quoted last week's broadcast from Harvard professor, African-American Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, that this was not going to be part of the new Bible of anti-Semitism. This was shortly after the book came out that he saw how dangerous these accusations were going to be. So I was looking online, one caller pressing certain issues, I was doing my best to get him to see the facts, the truth, the real data. He had these quotes taken here and taken there. And I gave him the larger context. We wouldn't believe that. Even I'm looking at the actual quotes in front of my eyes.

All right. And one thing I've learned how to do my decades of studies is how to do serious research because my degrees were in Near Eastern languages and literatures and my master's and PhD. That meant we had to read the actual text in the original languages.

It was not a translation of the text, but the original texts and even question the dictionaries and just dig as deep as we could to the words and meanings. So you learn how to do serious research over that. So I'm looking online, of course, we've all learned how to do Internet research and try to sift out the good from the bad. I'm looking online and I'm seeing some of the same quotes come up, but with answers. So I go to this this Web site and it's it's new African 77. And when I click on the gentleman's name involved with it and then look at some of his videos, he's talking about reparations. He's talking about the decimation of blacks through COVID-19 and through police brutality. So he's very much talking about those subjects and and, you know, very much when you go there, you'll see a strong pro African-American Web site and quoting Malcolm X and things like that. OK, so I see he's got an article on the role of the Zionist Jews in the African slave trade to the Americans. And to my amazement, he's setting the record straight.

To my amazement, he's correcting some of these same errors. So here, let me give you an example. It's got the question, did Jews really own slaves?

Yes. Jacob Breda Marcus, a historian, reform rabbi, wrote in his four volume History of Americans, American Jews, that over 75 percent of Jewish families in Charleston, South Carolina, Richmond, Virginia, Savannah, Georgia, own slaves, and nearly 40 percent of Jewish households across the country did. So this was brought out to me last week. I said, yeah, but you have to know what the actual numbers are involved. So to my surprise, this gentleman on the Web site points this out. The Jewish population in these cities was quite small, however. So the total number of slaves they own represented just a small fraction of the total slave population. Eli Faber, historian in New York City's John Jay College, reported that in 1790, Charleston Jews owned a total of 93 slaves. And that perhaps six Jewish families lived in Savannah in 1771. So if if 75 percent of the families owned slaves, that would be four families or five total total in Savannah.

So so the point is that you have to get the rest of the data, the rest of the information. So here, going down more on this Web site in a 1994 article in the New York Review of Books, David Brian Davis, an emeritus professor of history at Yale University and author of an award winning trilogy of books about slavery, noted that Jews were one of countless religious and ethnic groups around the world to participate in the slave trade. So they did they did what others did.

Sadly, they did. Others fought against it, but they were pretty much like everybody else, but just in very small numbers. The participants in the Atlantic slave trade system included Arabs, Berbers, scores of African ethnic groups, Italians, Portuguese Spaniards, Dutch Jews, Germans, Swedes, French, English, Danes, white Americans, Native Americans, even thousands of New World blacks who had been emancipated or were descended from freed slaves, but who then became slaveholding farmers or planters themselves. Davis went on to note that in the American South in 1830, there were one hundred twenty Jews among the forty five thousand slaveholders, only 20 or more slaves and only 20 Jews among the twelve thousand slave owners, owning 50 or more slaves. So out of forty five thousand slaveholders, only one hundred twenty were Jews.

So you've got to get the actual data. So I dug in a little bit more to this book that I mentioned last week, Saul Friedman, Jews and the American slave trade. Now, I don't have the quotes to put up for you, so I'm just going to those watching. I'm just going to leave up this image of the book. But he summarizes some points.

I just I just want to take a couple of minutes and read this to you. Those who love truth, please hear this. This is accurate.

This is factual. This is history. He said it is impossible to typecast all Jews in America in the 19th century as either apologists for the South or as freedom loving abolitionists, although some have tried. In the North, Judea phobes denounced Jews as secessionists. So they were siding with the South going to break away. Copperheads and rebels. In the South, they were damned as merciless speculators, army slackers and blockade runners. Some individuals or groups sided with the South. Others were unionist partisans.

Often loyalties dependent more on the place of residence, self and arbitrary decision, than conscience. Rabbi Corn has pointed out, quote, There was no such thing as an American Jewry or an American Judaism. No single Jew, not Rabbi Wise, not Rabbi Raphael or Rabbi Einhorn, presumed to speak for everyone. So some were pro-slavery, some were anti-slavery. Unlike Baptists, Presbyterians and other Christian sects, which had national synods or councils, Jews had known no religious court since the days of the Sanhedrin. So there are many different Jewish viewpoints. In the South, Jews found themselves surrounded by true believers, not only of Christianity, but of slavery. There were 76 synagogues in the entire United States in 1860, and only a handful were established below the Mason-Dixon line. Three in South Carolina, three in Maryland, two in Alabama, five in Louisiana, two in Missouri, one in Georgia.

That's it. The dominant population of the South, a mix of Anglo-American, Scots, Irish, German and French slaveholders, were, for the most part, attracted to evangelical Protestantism. The Christian churches used the catechism to control slaves. Baptist preachers in Georgia drilled into blacks the notion of sin.

Episcopal Orthodoxy reigned in eastern Virginia in the low country of South Carolina. Synods and conferences like that of the Methodists held in New York in 1844 and Presbyterians in 1845 closed ranks and stifled dissent. John Blassingame denounces the loud silence of Southern churches, including the Catholic Church, on slavery.

Such silence should not surprise. According to the annual report of the American Anti-Slavery Society for 1851, 16,346 ministers from Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist and Episcopalian congregations owned slaves. As Unitarian minister Samuel May wrote, the shepherds were being driven by the sheep. Of the 30,000 Christian pastors in the U.S., May declared, not one in a hundred openly denounced slavery or lifted a finger to protect fugitive slaves.

This is a charge. The secret relationship, so this misleading book by the Nation of Islam, offers no general condemnation of the 19,816 Methodist, 5,034 Presbyterian, 2,123 Lutheran, 2,129 Episcopalian, 2,230 Congregationalist, 2,442 Catholic, 676 German Reformed or 664 Universalist churches in America for their failure in confronting the great moral issue of the 19th century. But it does fault Jews, who had about as many congregations as the Sweden Borgians or Moravian Christian sects in 1860. As if anticipating such a denunciation, Rabbi Korn pointed out that Judaism was still in the stage of transition from a medieval, isolated faith tentative about expressing views on monopolitical problems, because its adherents had not been permitted to participate in the life around them, and a modern, confident religion which eventually would address specific personal and communal problems.

Korn acknowledged that individual Jews had a wide range of views, but he added, There were probably fewer Jews proportionately than other Americans at the extreme wings of the controversy and more in the middle ground, because as immigrants they would naturally take less interest in political questions than in the problem of economic and social adjustment. And just skipping down a little bit, perhaps Eli Evans has expressed the dilemma of the Jews in the South best. Strangers in a new land, they feared and respected white Southerners, whether the latter lived in big houses or plantations or in shanties with their broods of children. The Southerners were not meant to be challenged, but meant to avoid, only to sell to, never to confront. Theirs was a society based on fear and terror, the twin concepts that supposedly legitimated slavery. Jews could sense this violence simmering just below the surface. No matter how far these European newcomers progressed up the economic ladder, from pac-man to merchant, no matter how well their children interacted with white Christians, there was always alienation.

Right, writes Evans, no one crossed the Southerner in his native land. The Jew was commissioned to fear authority from the Buddha, the Tsar and the Emperor. He knew his place, the perpetual visitor, tentative and unaccepted, his primary concern to remain and survive. Subconsciously, the region would stake a claim to a corner of his soul, too, for he was white and he would acquiesce and become like them in many ways.

Yet he was conscious of the differences, of the permissible boundaries of attitude and act, of just how far was too far and protective enough of his own body and time to take on whatever colors were necessary to get through the day. Rabbi Koren ends by saying this, the history of slavery would not have differed one wick from historic reality if no single Jew resident in the South had been resident in the South. Other whites would have owned slaves, other traders and auctioneers would have bought and sold. Bottom line, Jews were involved like other Americans, but they had a tiny percentage of the overall population and a tiny role in the overall slave trade. And anything you hear contrary to that is a myth and a lie.

And I could go through page after page with details, numbers, specifics, one after another after another. Interestingly, Jews in the South could blend in as other whites with the common enemy being these slaves, these blacks that had to be kept down. In the North, Jews were some of the enemy because they were considered different and outsiders. So it happened that being engaged in the slave trade made them just part of the South. In the North, they stood out as Jews. Those were the major cultural differences. Jews, like everybody else, some made terrible mistakes and did wrong and ugly things in the slave trade. The rest of the population and others fought for the freedom of the slaves with the abolition movement with others in the population.

But bottom line, they were a tiny minority with a tiny impact. Hey, friends, thanks for joining us on Thoroughly Jewish Thursday. If you're just tuning in, we've covered the Abrahamic Accords so you can go back to the beginning of the broadcast.

You can also read an article that I wrote about the peace treaty on this on Stream.org or always on our website, AskDrBrown.org. If you want to stand with us, if you're blessed by these broadcasts and believe what we're doing on the Facebook page, there's a donate button. Just click on that. Any gift of any size is appreciated on YouTube.

Right beneath the chat window is a dollar sign. You can click on that and give or you can support us at AskDrBrown.org. We're giving a little more data, displaying some of the myths about Jewish involvement in the slave trade. I think we're done with that. And the information is out there. The facts are out there for those who want to know the truth. But I asked for folks to to post questions on Facebook yesterday afternoon, said first ones that come in will be the first ones we get to.

So I'm just going in that order. And Chris asked this. What is your opinion about the rabbi in Israel saying he is going to introduce the Jewish Messiah, possibly on Rosh Hashanah this year? Ignore it.

Ignore it. I don't know specifically who you're speaking about there, but there are some very religious rabbis that are always looking for the Messiah to be revealed at any moment. And some even claim to have met him and so on.

But this to me would just be more talk of. I don't pay any more attention to that than I pay attention to those who tell us that Jesus is going to return on Rosh Hashanah. Now, if you're going to pick a day for his return, that's a good day because it's the sounding of the trumpet shofar blast. But since no one knows the day of the hour and since much has to happen before he returns, I don't pay any more attention to that. Now, will there be a false Messiah revealed at some point? And Jewish people believe in that person. I expect that.

I just don't see it happening now. It's being candid, so I ignore that. All right. Tony, I work in a Jewish school and live in a Jewish neighborhood. I love you very much and I want to share the good news of Jesus with them. But I also understand my approach may be different speaking with Jews than with atheists of the faith. The question is, how can I approach Jewish people with the good news?

It seems to me harder for me than it would be with anyone else. OK, the first thing you have to honor your employer and and be sure that you are not going outside of your bounds there. In other words, can you share your faith during work time? Would it be considered offensive if you were a Christian working in a Jewish school trying to share your faith? I mean, just think if you're sending your kids to a Christian school and there was a Muslim employee there, maybe he was his task was food preparation in the cafeteria or his task was something maybe more likely food preparation. He'd run into Islamic legal issues. But anyway, let's just say, you know, he was in charge of the grounds and landscaping and got to interact with people.

How would you feel if you found out that he was talking to your kids, your Christian kids that are in school there about Islam and proselytizing? So be sure what you do, you do on a relational level. Be sure that you do it. You know, you're getting to know teachers and others and just say, what do you believe about this? I'm a Christian. I believe this always build a relationship that's first and foremost is with any human being you're sharing the gospel with.

It's your opportunity to build a relationship. Second, if you're able to share your testimony. And then if there are questions, issues, you can just go to major Jewish outreach websites like Jews for Jesus or chosen people.

Just type those in and you'll get pointers. You'll get information there. If you start to share your faith and objections come up, then then you want to go to my website. AskDrBrown.org and click on Jewish and you'll see that we have whole sections dealing with Jewish objections to Jesus, multiple volumes. We've written many videos we put out. So if questions come up, if you want to share a testimony with them, a Jewish testimony. Look for one for Israel online YouTube channel, one for Israel and look at testimonies.

Oh, that would really fit. That's just where this person's coming from. But for the most part, if you're dealing with non-traditional Jews, although there'll be objections to the faith that will come up, certain misconceptions about Christianity or who Jesus is and then church history and the persecution of Jews by professing Christians and church history, that will come up. Otherwise, you're just dealing with other human beings that need the Lord and be amazed how many are open to hear more.

But those are some of the suggestions I give. And then with everything else, you pray, you pray, you pray for God to open hearts and minds. Kat, do Christians have to support the nation of Israel? What if a Christian loves Jews, but the actual political nation of Israel not so much?

OK, when you say have to support, I really appreciate that question. But it's better to ask, is it pleasing in God's sight if Christians stand with the modern state of Israel? Now, I say yes, but I want to qualify that. Yes, because as followers of Jesus, we recognize that it is God who preserved the Jewish people through history. The same God who scattered the Jewish people out of the land has brought them back.

So, number one, you recognize God did this and therefore you should stand with that. Number two, you see from the hellish attack that's come against the Jewish people through the centuries, even the hostility towards Israel that makes the Abraham Accords, the signing of a peace treaty with Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates all the more massive, because there's been so much hostility for so many years, the conflict over Jerusalem. This is this is conflicted territory because God made promises.

God made promises. And a Jewish Jerusalem must welcome the Messiah back. So, one, God reestablished the modern state of Israel. Two, Satan wants to wipe the Jewish people out and destroy the modern state of Israel. Which is why you should stand with Israel, meaning you recognize God brought them back and the enemy's trying to destroy. And then as a follower of Jesus, you want to undo the horrible history of Christian anti-Semitism by demonstrating genuine Christian love for Israel as a Christian. That being said, you don't have to agree with every political policy. That being said, you can think that the Palestinians might be treated unfairly or that at times the Ethiopians have been second class citizens, or you don't like the worldliness of secular Israel or the hostility towards the gospel from religious Jews. That's fine to differ. Friends can differ.

Family members can differ. So you stand with and support in terms of believing God raised up Israel and the devil wants to wipe them out and that much of the world media is postured against Israel. You'll be amazed if you read my book, Our Hands Are Staying with Blood.

The new edition came out a year ago after being continuously in print from 1992 on. But if you look at that, you'll see where we expose the media's misreporting and misleading reporting about Israel. You may be influenced by that. But once you dig and find out the truth, you don't have to agree with Israel on everything, for sure.

All right. Let's see. Wade, with all of the Old Testament prophecy that was clearly fulfilled by Jesus, how can the Jews today still reject him? They have a very different view of those prophecies. We see them as clear fulfillment. They see them as either taken out of context or mistranslated or misinterpreted or as not really proving anything.

And there are a few reasons for that. One is that historically, having rejected Jesus and now developing an ongoing faith outside of that, and you grow up in a faith where you don't believe and you see things differently, you're going to have a different worldview. You're going to have a different view of scripture, different view of Jesus, different view of Messiah. If you think the Messiah has to come, establish peace on the earth, destroy the enemies of Israel, rebuild the temple, regather the exiles, things like that, say, well, Jesus hasn't done that. He can't be the Messiah.

You don't understand the two phases to his mission. And because of the national rejection of the Messiah, God says there is judgment, so there is a veil. So you do pray for the Holy Spirit to open the eyes of Jewish people. Of course, traditional Jews would think that I'm reading the Bible, as they say, through rose colored glasses. I'm the one that's seeing it wrongly.

I would say they're seeing it wrongly. So, of course, we pray for God to open their eyes. But the other thing is that there are valid questions that we need to be able to answer, that there are objections. That's why I wrote five volumes on answering Jewish objections to Jesus. But thankfully, these things are abundantly and beautifully and wonderfully clear to us, and we need to help present them in a way that's helpful to our Jewish friends and neighbors. Let's see. Audrey got a question about the Sabbath.

We've answered that so many times that we just refer folks to our website, Ask Dr. Brown, askdearbrown.org. And just where's the search engine there? Just click on Sabbath and you'll find lots of stuff, short videos, long discussions, things like that. Aaron, what does it mean to be a Jew, seeing as most don't seem to follow God? The great majority of Jews worldwide today are not religious. In America, a good 90 percent.

Israel, maybe 70 percent. There's a higher percentage of Jewish atheists than non-Jewish atheists. So there are Jews who don't even believe in God. But being a Jew is both ethnic and religious. You are a Jew if you can trace your descent back to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

And often with DNA testing, that can be done. So you can be a Jew ethnically, you can be a Jew religiously. And that means that you can actually be a Gentile like Ruth and join the people of Israel.

Or today someone could be raised a Muslim or an atheist or a Christian, they could convert to Judaism. And now they become part of the Jewish people and their children will be considered Jewish. So if they say it's a mother, now her children would be considered Jewish or a mother and father convert, their children would be considered Jewish that they give birth to. So it is both ethnic and religious. So there are Israeli Jews who don't believe in God, who don't believe in modern Israel as a fulfillment of prophecy. They just live there, but they're still Jews. And there are Jews who are very religious. So they are Jewish both ethnically and religiously, and others are Jewish only ethnically. Now, you say, but doesn't Jew mean praise?

Yeah. Etymologically, if you trace it back, praise of God. But that is not the ongoing meaning of a Jew.

It is either a physical descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, or a descendant of a convert or religious practitioner of Judaism. All right. That's all I was able to get to. Oh, I wish I'd get to more. But thank you for your questions.

Thank you for posting so many so quickly. I did say first come, first serve. We do our best to answer. All right. Join me tomorrow, God willing. I'll be live from Nashville, Tennessee, taking your questions, taking your calls. You've got questions. We've got answers. And let's pray. The lost sheep of the House of Israel, that greater than earthly peace is eternal peace in Jesus, Yeshua, the Messiah. God bless.