A Backwards Reading of Romans 11

Well, to determine what Paul meant when he said all Israel will be saved in Romans 11, that's 866-34-TRUTH. That's 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown.

Hey friends, this is Michael Brown. Welcome to today's broadcast. Thoroughly Jewish Thursday on the Line of Fire. Once again this entire week we've been playing specially pre-recorded broadcasts for you because I've taken a week to get away just to seek God and be in His presence and do my best to align my life in full obedience to Him and our ministry.

Really ready to launch forward in 2021. Normally, I'm in India the first week or so of December, but because of COVID and the inability to travel there and things being shut down in terms of the ministry that I normally work with there, in terms of their outward meetings and things like that, we had this time free. I thought, you know, let me just get away and be with the Lord. So I trust you've been blessed by the broadcast this week. It's Thoroughly Jewish Thursday, so we're going to dig in the Word. And then I asked for questions on Twitter. Don't post them now, because I asked for them a few days back, and I'm going to be answering questions.

A lot of really fascinating questions have been posted on Twitter. I'm going to respond to them, all Jewish related. And then I'm going to give you a special prayer request to join with me a little bit later in the broadcast.

Okay. So when Paul said Romans 11 26, all Israel will be saved, did he mean all Jews through all time in history, right? That through all history, every Jew who's ever lived will ultimately be saved? Or did he mean at the end of the age, there'll be a national turning of the Jewish people and hence all Israel will be saved? Or was he talking about all Israel, meaning the cumulative number of Jewish believers through the centuries? So say the remnant who believed in Paul's day right through the remnant who believes in our day right to the end of the age, that kind of all cumulatively, that's all Israel. Or was he talking as if Israel was the church, spiritual Israel, and all Israel will be saved, meaning this is how God will save Jews and Gentiles and how the church will be the church.

Now I'm quite convinced that three out of those four views are unscriptural and impossible and that only one is correct. And we've gone through Romans 9, 10, and 11 to understand what Paul was saying. But often people get stuck right at the beginning of Romans 9 after he lays out his broken heart and God's ongoing purposes for the Jewish people, his broken heart for Israel. He then says in 9, 6, well, not all Israel is Israel. Not all Israel is Israel. And therefore, when he says all Israel later on, he means either the church or just the believing remnant, et cetera. Well, of course, we've demonstrated time and time again that you don't stop in Romans 9, 6, or 7 or 8, you keep reading. And after making the special point that there's an Israel within Israel, Jewish believers within the nation as a whole, every time he uses Israel, 10 times in a row, culminating in 11, 26, every time he uses Israel, he is referring to the nation as a whole, not the remnant within. But what's helpful is if we go at this backwards, and now you'll see why in a moment. Because after 11, 26, without any possible question, without any equivocation, without any ambiguity, he keeps referring back to the Israel he's been talking about.

So there's no question. If you read it forward rightly, if you don't stop at 9, 6, chapter 9, verses 6, 7, and 8, if you don't stop there, if you keep reading, you will then see when he gets to 11, 26, who he's talking about. But it then becomes even reinforced more strongly when we come from the back. All right, so Romans 11, 36, the end of the chapter, Paul says, for from him and through him and to him are all things, to him be the glory forever.

Amen. This is the Tree of Life version. I actually was a consultant in the Tree of Life translation for the Epistles. You would have thought that I'd be a consultant for parts of the Hebrew Bible, but by the time I got involved, I'd been an early encourager on the project.

But by the time I actually got involved and was asked to give input, so I reviewed, was it all the letters? Either all the letters or at least letters of Paul went through line by line by line. I'm not a Greek scholar. I'm a ton stronger in Hebrew than Greek, but I know the text well enough and the issues well enough that I was able to interact and make a couple of suggestions. But it's a great, great job that was done on the letters. And Jeff Feinberg, a Messianic Jewish scholar, played a key role in that.

All right, so this doesn't obviously tell us anything about 1126. It's just a praise, adoration of God. So let's back up a few more verses. Verse 33. And some have said that Paul is so overcome by this revelation he's given of the mercy of God on Jew and Gentile alike, and how God brings this master plan together, that he puts his pen down and raises his hands and begins to worship. Now, he may have been working with a scribe, right?

We assume that, but you get the point. So verse 33. Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments, how incomprehensible his ways. For who has known the mind of Adonai, the mind of the Lord? Who has been his counselor? Who has first given to him that it shall be repaid to him?

OK, so again, this doesn't interact directly with 1126. It is simply praise, worship of God, quoting some verses from Isaiah, and just he's overwhelming. And please, you get to the end of the story, so I cannot believe he did this. I could not believe how he did this. I could not believe what he has done.

He is beyond amazing. All right, so let's go back up a few more verses as we do our backwards reading here. And let's see here. Let's start in verse 30. For just as you once were disobedient to God, but now have been shown mercy because of their disobedience, in like manner these also have now been disobedient with the result that because of the mercy shown to you, they also may receive mercy. For God has shut up all in disobedience that he might show mercy to all. OK, so he shut up all in disobedience, Jew and Gentile alike, so that he may show mercy to all, Jew and Gentile alike. But the contrast between you and them, yours and theirs, in the previous verses, who's he talking about? Earlier in the chapter, he addressed Gentile believers. I'm writing to Gentiles.

He's been talking about the disobedience of the Jewish people in the national rejection of the Messiah. So just as you, Gentiles, once were disobedient to God, but have now been shown mercy because of their disobedience, who's the there? The Jewish nation, Jewish people. In like manner, these also have now been disobedient, Jewish people today, with the result that because of the mercy shown to you, Gentiles, they may also receive mercy.

Who's they? The Jewish people. They don't believe, right?

OK, so let's step back and think for a moment. He's saying that you Gentiles have received mercy. The message of the Messiah came to Israel, to the Jewish people.

As a nation, they rejected it. Now that mercy has come to you. Now that gospel has come to you. It is now your role to show mercy to the non-believing Jews. It is now your calling to provoke the non-believing Jews to jealousy and then provoke to jealousy. They will then turn to the Messiah. So their disobedience has brought mercy and blessing to you.

Now you show mercy to them so that they may believe. So who's he talking about? The them, the they, the subject here. They are the Jewish people that do not believe. They are the nation as a whole. Now, nobody differs with that.

In other words, no sound commentator or sound exegete argues with the fact that that's the they that's being spoken of. The Jewish people that do not believe and that God wants to have mercy on and use the Gentiles to have mercy on them. Gentile believers in Jesus. Well, let's let's just back up a little bit more.

OK, let's let's back up to verse twenty eight concerning the good news. They are hostile for your sake. Who's they? The non-believing Jews. Correct. Any possible dispute? No. No exegete interpreter with a Bible in front of them questions that.

Consider the good news. They, they being who? The Jews who don't believe. The non-believing nation of Israel.

They are hostile for your sake. You, the Gentile followers of Jesus. But concerning chosenness, they who? The Jews who don't believe. The nation of Israel rejecting the Messiah. They are loved on account of the fathers for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

So you get what he's saying here? Right now, you are being opposed. These people are enemies of the gospel who the Jewish people who do not believe the non-believing nation of Israel. They are now enemies of the gospel, but this for your sake.

Right. They have rejected the gospel, which means it's come to you. But they are still loved by God because of the patriarchs for the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable. God made promises that he will keep. Hence, earlier in Romans nine pulses, the promises are still theirs.

All right. Now, there's no ambiguity. There's no controversy here. No one thinks he's talking about the church spiritually. It's the church that's opposing the gospel. No, no, it's the non-believing Jews.

We all know that. And yet there's still a promise to the nation because God gave one unconditionally to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. That's why the Jewish people are still here.

Well, we've been preserved by God because of his promise, because of his goodness. All right. So now let's let's back it up a little bit more. So we're going to we're not going to get to the beginning of twenty six yet. All right.

But let's go halfway through three twenty six. The Deliverer shall come out of Zion. He shall turn away ungodliness from whom? Jacob. Is the church Jacob? No. Are Gentile Christians spiritual? Jacob?

No. Who is Jacob? The Jewish people, the nation as a whole. And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins, considering the good news. They are hostile for your sake, but they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for just as you were once disobedient to God have now been shown mercy because of their disobedience.

And like matter, these have also now been disobedient with the result that because the mercy shown to you, they also may receive mercy. They they they they they who Jacob, who the nonbelievers, who the ones who will turn one when the Messiah comes, when Yeshua returns, when salvation comes to Zion and ungodliness is turned from Jacob. So this is talking about at the end of the age at the return of the Lord, a national turning of Israel, of the ungodly, of the nonbeliever.

That's what it's talking about. So we back up to verse twenty five. For I do not want you, brothers and sisters, to be ignorant of this ministry, ministry, mystery, lest you be wise in your own eyes that a partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way, all Israel will be saved. As it is written, the Deliverer shall come out of Zion. He shall turn away and God is from Jacob.

This is my covenant with them when I take away their sins. Who's them? Who's Jacob? Who who's all Israel?

The nation as a whole. There's no other possible way to read it when you read it fairly and in context, especially with this backwards reading. It's talking about a national turning of Jewish people at the end of the age in conjunction with the return of the Messiah. Welcome back to our Thirdly Jewish Thursday broadcast.

This is Michael Brown. Can I share a prayer request with you? And then we're going to go to some of your Twitter questions. Many of you know the unique position that God has put us in when it comes to Jewish ministry. There are so many good works out there, so many fine ministries that are reaching Jewish people with the good news of the Messiah.

And I work with most of the large ones were friends, colleagues wanting to see our people come to faith. But as you know, there's been a unique role that God's called me to play with our ministry, and that is being on the front lines of apologetics. Many of you have read my five volume series answering Jewish objections to Jesus, or you've seen our 22 hour series on countering the counter missionaries, or you've read real kosher Jesus or resurrection, or maybe our hands are stained with blood about anti-Semitism and church history was a life changer for you.

Or you've watched some of the debates that we've done over the years. I saw a note on my Facebook page, my personal Facebook page the other day, and he said, I met a Jewish person who said, I would never listen to the gospel of the message of Jesus until I saw Michael Brown's material. And then it was after that, he was open to hear the message. For many years, as I've traveled America and even the world, I have had Jewish believers come up to me and say, I'm in the faith today because of you. And when I talked to them, what they meant was they had come to faith as Jewish followers of the Messiah. They had come to faith, but then they were losing their faith because of the counter missionary rabbis, the objections they encountered and the attacks on the New Testament and the attacks on the messianic prophecies. And then they came across my books and material and that was, oh, thank God we have the answers.

Thank God we have the answers. The current general manager of the New York Giants, and hopefully they're building a good long-term winning strategy, the general manager of the New York Giants, former GM of Carolina Panthers, in fact, he was the GM when they went 15 and one and went to the Super Bowl, Dave Gettleman. He is a solid Jewish believer and a few years ago shared his testimony publicly. And I got to know him a little bit before that. But he had started attending a messianic Jewish congregation, but had lots of questions. He had lots of questions about Jesus being the real Messiah.

Came to see a major debate I did with Rabbi Shmueli Boteach in New York City. And it was on who really killed Jesus and the identity of Messiah. And that was the turning point for him.

That was the night his questions were answered. And after that, he was sure that Yeshua was the Messiah. And he's been in the faith as a solid believer ever since. We hear this all the time by God's grace. When I came to faith in 71, and then my dad had me meet with the local rabbi, and then the local rabbi had me meet with other rabbis, and brilliant men and some very, very devoted, and they challenged me, and some challenged me to the core of my being.

And it really shook me in certain ways. I knew Jesus had changed my life, but now it seemed all this evidence was against him. And I said, God, I just want you and your truth as a loyal Jew. I want to follow you and your truth, whatever the cost or consequence. And overwhelmingly, through the Scriptures first and foremost, and then more study, God made absolutely clear to me that Jesus Yeshua is the Messiah of Israel. But I got so bombarded and so challenged by the rabbis and the counter missionaries, and there was no material. I didn't have resources to go to that answered the questions.

I thought, I can't let someone else go through that. And that's why God laid on my heart to start writing the apologetics materials, first, to strengthen Jewish believers, and then secondly, to reach Jews who don't believe, and then thirdly, for the benefit of the whole body. We continue to produce cutting-edge resources that are making differences in people's lives, that are coming back to the faith or coming to the faith through these materials.

We have so much more that we want to do. We want to expand our Jewish outreach. So would you pray with me as I'm on my knees and on my face this week, seeking God and asking him for his blessing and to deepen us and sharpen us and make us everything he wants us to be, to glorify him while we have breath. Would you believe God with me for supernatural breakthroughs, for God to give us even more cutting-edge wisdom and insight, for an even greater anointing on the work we're doing? More and more is being translated into Hebrew and being released in Hebrew in various different settings, intranet, TV, other settings. And by God's grace, the material is here to be used. Many of you are super blessed by One for Israel, Eitan Barr leading that.

If you have Eitan's book on answering Jewish objections to Christianity at the beginning, he says that it was my work that inspired him to do this. So by God's grace, we're part of that. So would you pray with us for supernatural breakthroughs and for supernatural funding? There are billions of dollars in people's banks, bank accounts, trillions.

I don't know what the amounts are. There's so much money that can be used for the kingdom. And that's what we're burning to do.

That's where it goes. Money comes into this ministry, it goes right back out. You would be utterly amazed, friends. You would be blown away if you saw how much we do with so few people and so little funds, and you glorify God with us.

So we're going for it. But would you believe God with us for God to speak to those who have resources and want to see Israel saved, as he has uniquely positioned us for this hour? Would you believe God?

Could you do that now? Just ask God for the resources to be released, to help get things out. We want to bring other team members on that can do ongoing Internet interaction, chat rooms for seekers. We want to work with a former ultra-orthodox Jew who's a follower of Yeshua, devoted follower of Yeshua, to give him outlet to get more materials out in the language that especially would reach the ultra-orthodox. We've got a lot of plans and vision, and we know God's birth in this. And we know, I know the God who will save Israel and the God who saved me is the God who will supply everything. I feel tremendous faith as I'm speaking.

So would you agree with me? God, release the funds for us to reach more and more of the lost sheep of the House of Israel in Yeshua's name. I know he's going to do it.

He's faithful. And if you're part of the answer, awesome. Go to the Web site right now. AskDrBrown.org. Click on donate. Year end tax deductible gift designated for Jewish ministry. We will know what to do with it and we'll keep you posted. We got funds to keep putting out videos demolishing the lies and deception of one particular counter missionary rabbi. We've recorded the first six already. We've got a bunch more planned.

And God willing, there are going to be dozens of those to come out. God's been providing funds for that. We are excited, but we've got a lot of other plans. And I'm so excited to see what God is going to do.

And then further doors, he's going to open up for us to do more debates and a lot of things we've talked about. And ministries we're working with on the front lines of reaching religious Jews in Israel. So thank you for praying. And I just, boy, I follow real faith as I prayed that with you.

Maybe you did too. So God's going to do this. God's going to do this. And if you're part of it, awesome. If it's a dollar or a million dollars, if you're part of it, awesome. But your prayers are absolutely part of it.

Your faith is absolutely part of it. Okay, let's go over to Twitter and let's see here. I'm going to start answering some questions that have been posted. Don't post them now. I already solicited these. This is from paleoconservative nationalist.

That's the Twitter handle. Are Jews by nature evil or is it just secular Jews? I ask this because why have there been so many evil Jews who did inexplicable things like Wilhelm Reich and Karl Marx?

Ah, you've got the question exactly wrong. How about are human beings by nature evil or is it just Gentiles? Because think of the things done by Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse Tung and Paul Pott.

And down the list we go. All of them Gentile. See, it's a bizarre thing to think because you've got a handful of Jews who had world influence and wicked hearts, that that somehow indicts all the Jews or all secular Jews. Why not make this argument for Gentiles? So about sexual revolution. Well, there is a German Jew.

Okay. How about Alfred Kinsey and Hugh Hefner, the fathers of the sexual revolution in America, both of them Gentile. So, I mean, the answer is that Jews are like everybody else. You've got kind-hearted Jews and you've got mean Jews.

You've got religious, you've got non-religious, you've got just like everybody else. I say Jews like everyone else, except more so it seems that our gifts are exaggerated, our weaknesses are exaggerated. But my view is that the Jewish people have been called by God to be world changers and to the extent, to the extent that we are in harmony with God, be it a Moses or a Paul, we have a massive impact. When we're out of harmony with God, like a Karl Marx, we have a massive impact, but negative. The former for good, the latter for bad. So that would be how it intersects with your question, but just turn it around and say, is it all Gentiles or right? And what about religious Gentiles? You know, Osama bin Laden. Okay.

I mean, we just go down the list. So you see what a bizarre question it is. Richards, who is a Jew? My understanding is that you must have a Jewish mother that is descendants of Esau, called Enomites, Jewish mother notwithstanding.

No. Okay. So in Jewish history, Jewish tradition has developed to say that you're Jewish if you have a Jewish mother and don't convert to another religion, or someone just say you're Jewish if you have a Jewish mother, period. But if you go all the way back to Esau, there's no such thing as Jewish then. Right.

Okay. When you're talking about Isaac and Rebecca, there's a such thing as Jewish, that concept comes up later. So biblically, you could argue that it comes through the man, but through the father. But ultimately, as Judaism developed, and certainly within centuries after the time of Jesus, it began to be taught that the descent was measured through the mother, and that was based on Ezra and Nehemiah, when Israelites married foreign women, and when they divorced them, they sent them away with the children. So the thought being that the children of these foreign women were themselves foreign. That's the Jewish argument.

My understanding would be that if you are of Jewish descent through either your mother or your father, and have a Jewish consciousness, you have been raised to understand you're a Jew, that you can make a good argument that you are a Jew. We'll be right back. Welcome, welcome to our Thoroughly Jewish Thursday broadcast. We started the broadcast with a backwards reading of Romans 11, starting at the end of the chapter and going backwards to see exactly what Paul meant when he said all Israel will be saved. So if you missed that, be sure to catch the beginning of the broadcast.

You can do it on our YouTube channel, Ask Dr. Brown, on our Facebook page, Ask Dr. Brown, on our website, askdrbrown.org, or wherever you get the podcast, as we are on numerous platforms. And my appreciation to every platform that carries the broadcast. Our goal is to reach as many people as possible with this message, so thank you. And everyone listening on live radio, always a great joy to be with you. I'm not taking calls today. This show is being aired as I'm away during a private prayer retreat, so not taking live calls today, but I have solicited questions on Twitter, Jewish-related. Hey, it's Thoroughly Jewish Thursday! Some things don't change, even when I'm away praying, right?

Some things don't change. So we solicited these questions, but don't post now. We already got these questions, all right? Jeff asked this, explain Nakba. I've heard it's the reason why Middle Eastern Muslims are angry with Jews.

Yes, sir. Al-Nakba, in Arabic, the catastrophe, the disaster, is the way the Muslim world thinks of the birth of the modern state of Israel. So as the Jewish people worldwide are celebrating in May, in May of 1948, celebrating the birth of Israel, the Muslim world, and especially the surrounding nations, are remembering it as the catastrophe, the disaster. So the Jewish mind, this is when God faithfully kept his promises, restored us back to the land against all odds, out of the ashes of the Holocaust and the overwhelming odds of surrounding nations wanting to wipe Israel out. The nation was formally established, a cause for great rejoicing. And immediately, with the announcement of the modern state of Israel, about 800,000 Jews in all the surrounding Muslim lands were expelled by the Muslim countries.

You are no longer welcome here. So this created a great crisis. And remember, this is not long after the Holocaust, just a few years after. So now these Jews in all these Muslim lands are homeless. Well, the vast majority move to Israel, emigrate there and become part of the Jewish nation. Others settle in different parts of the world.

Some go to America and things like that. But the vast majority go to Israel. Well, what happened at the same time, roughly 600,000 Arabs who were living in the land fled because of the war. Now, some of them fled because the Muslim leadership said a cannon can't distinguish between the Jew and the Gentile. Get out of there and we're going to destroy the Jewish people, drive them into the sea, then come back to your homes, your lands and all of this. Others fled because there was a war going on when the surrounding Arab nations attacked. And others fled because Israel is in the midst of war and is going to drive out resistance. If it's Arab resistance, it's going to drive them out so some get driven out. All right. But let's just say this. If the surrounding nations did not declare war, if they accepted the two state solution that was put forward by the U.N., the U.N. partition plan in 1947, then those Arabs could have stayed right there.

All right. They could have stayed and become part of the new state of Israel. Those who wanted to live there and others in the lands that would be called Palestine. But in the Arab memory, the collective Muslim memory, Arab memory, this is al-Nakhba, the great catastrophe when 600,000 Palestinians, as I looked at, were displaced from their homes through evil Israel. Evil Israel came in, took their land and displaced them. And now they've been left as refugees because the surrounding Muslim nations said, hey, we're not taking you in. Let's let's make this just look bad for Israel.

So that's that's how it's perceived. So as Jews are celebrating, Muslims are mourning. Dancing dad bear.

Hi, Dr. Brown. I'd like to understand how the strangers and foreigners that joined the exodus were integrated into the people of Israel. Did they choose tribes or were they just divided in?

Thank you and God bless. Yes. So you do have the people that the Israelites did not drive out. And as you have you have those who who left Egypt together with the people of Israel.

Right. A mixed multitude. And then as the as the people of Israel came in and took the land, Joshua judges recount that, that they didn't conquer everyone. And in some cases, the people just became servants among the people of Israel or just joined in in different ways. Beyond this information, the text doesn't tell us, especially those coming out of Egypt after the exodus. It doesn't tell us that the understanding would be that they just became incorporated into the larger people of Israel. Now, some say, well, they were the most disobedient. They were the grumblers, the complainers, and a lot of them were killed by plagues and judgments.

So it could be it could be. But for sure, at some point in time, they would have just become incorporated into the larger nation of Israel. They would have been converts in that regard to the God of Israel, just like someone could convert to Judaism today. We don't have we don't have data, hard data beyond what's written in scripture.

You have myths and traditions, but nothing beyond what's written in scripture. So in that sense, your guess is as good as mine. But just don't read beyond what's written. Right. We don't have further information. All right. Let's just look for some more questions here. And let's see. Kevin.

Hello, Dr. Brown. Is there any difference between the Judaism faith today and the Judaism faith in Jesus time? Is there any change to the concept of Messiah in the two periods? Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely. Jewish tradition has grown and developed greatly, vastly the vast majority of of all sacred Jewish literature. Mishnah, Talmud, Midrash, law codes. Ninety eight percent of it is all developed after the time of Jesus. Now, traditional Judaism would say it's expanded, but it all goes back to Moses. And much of it was already known in Yeshua's day. But for example, when you had the temple standing, when you had a functioning priesthood, when you had Jewish sovereignty in the land versus Jewish people scattered around the world versus no temple versus no functioning priesthood, you're gonna have to have tons and tons of innovations.

So someone once put it like this. I can't find the exact quote, but I read it from James Park's great early church historian and he made the comment, which I'm paraphrasing, that Judaism is no more the religion of the Old Testament than Catholicism is the religion of the New Testament. If you ask a Catholic, why do you do this, this, this, this, this? It's not in the Bible. They would say, oh, it's in harmony with scripture, but it's part of our church tradition, that the church is also inspired. Like one of my rabbi friends said to me that for him, tradition is like another book of the Bible. In other words, it is authoritative. This is unwritten.

The others are written. You know, even something as simple as a Jewish man wearing a yarmulke, a traditional Jew wearing a yarmulke, you would not find a traditional Jew on the planet that does not cover his head wearing a yarmulke. And yet that practice would have been unknown in Jesus' day.

Now, whether men covered their head with turbans or any kind of covering is a separate issue or that was just Middle Eastern custom, et cetera. But in point of fact, many things done in traditional Judaism would be unknown to previous generations because each new society situation is going to require further laws. And, you know, you come into a more industrialized age, you come into the modern digital age and various things. And what can we do?

Can't we do? Oh, yes. So many, many changes. Now, as far as the Messiah, yes, there was a more clear developing of the picture of the Messiah. That there was there were many more views, messianic views of a messiah in the first century from a warring king to a priestly messiah to different things. So traditional Judaism codifies the idea more and clarifies it more. Look, you have, oh, about 800 years after the time of Jesus, one of the leading rabbis of his day is writing a letter clarifying certain things about messianic police. You have in the 12th century with Moses Maimonides where he's codifying and laying out systematically what beliefs are, whereas there is a lot more speculation and diversity. Now, I've heard traditional rabbis say that we've had one view and one view only of the Messiah for the last 3500 years. No, that's not true. That's a retroverted view to take what's believed today and put it back on previous generations.

Talbot, do bar mitzvah curricula touch on or give a name to the imprecatory Psalms? No, no, not at all. Not anything they'd even be thought of. I mean, here, I'll give you this analogy. When you're going to driver's ed, is there a discussion about bombing Taliban in Afghanistan? What does that have to do with driver's ed? Exactly. Why would it even be thought of of imprecatory Psalms? What would that have to do with training someone in scriptural passage and in certain basic Jewish concepts, etc.?

No, wouldn't come up at all. You know, during your driver's ed class, what do you learn about planting flowers in different climates in Florida? It's like, what does that have to do with driver's ed?

It would be that completely, utterly unrelated. Kenny, who makes the best knishes? I'm fat. All right, I'm going to help you, Kenny.

I'm going to help you. I've never been a knish eater. Jewish? Yeah, I didn't always have Jewish food tastes.

But being fat is not who you want to be, man. Here I am, 65 years old, no aches. I do have a couple of pains. That's because I was pushed in a workout, lifting the other day.

But otherwise, no aches, no pains, no sickness, no medication, no fatigue, mind sharp, body healthy by the grace of God. 65. My workout partner is a WWE wrestler. Oh, we plan to do a video together. We got a plan for a video. And Nancy even approved it.

She said, yeah, you can do that. I just hope I survive it. But anyway, yeah, it's because God helped me radically change my diet six and a quarter years ago. And otherwise, when I was 59, I was getting weary. I had multiple headaches a week, like three headaches, maybe more every single week, and constant lower back pain, and had to travel with a breathing machine because of sleep apnea and, of course, use it at home. My cholesterol was no good.

My blood pressure was high and all that. Think of it, no lower back pain, haven't had a headache in six and a quarter years, no more sleep apnea, blood pressure, cholesterol, just in wonderful order. So what I'm going to recommend instead of the best conditions is the book Nancy and I wrote, Breaking the Stronghold of Food. There you go.

That's my Hanukkah Christmas gift to you. I encourage you to read the book, Breaking the Stronghold of Food. Dr. Brown, if you really wanted to see me healthy, you'd send it for free. Nope, because if you don't have enough incentive to buy it, you won't have enough incentive to read it, let alone to act on it.

But as one who was overweight most of my life and 59 years, ate unhealthily, I can tell you, man, the grace of God, if you can change, it's worth it. Give us strength to always do what's right. It's The Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome back to Thirdly Jewish Thursday, Michael Brown here. I'm going to continue answering your previously posted Jewish-related Twitter questions. Jeff, can you answer those Christians who do not believe the land still belongs to Israel through the Abrahamic Covenant?

Also, can you comment on the reality that the legal boundaries actually far exceed the present national land boundaries of Israel? Okay, number one, number one, it's challenging to get Christians to see some of the promises to Israel because of the idea that, well, now that Jesus has come, all that stuff has passed, and we're just looking at eternity and spiritual things so the physical land doesn't matter. There are obstacles to overcome, but the simple thing to do is to start going through what's written in the Old Testament.

Start with like Psalm 105. Read it through. You'll see the relevant passages.

So, okay, look at this. Has God made himself clear? Is it possible God can make himself any more clear with an oath, with swearing, with on and on and on? Didn't he say, I'm giving you the land of Cain and celestial inheritance? It's the juris.

I'm giving it. You say, yeah, yeah, but see, under the law of Moses, if you disobeyed, you kicked out of the land, if you repent, then you come back and they haven't repented. You say, well, what is Paul saying in Galatians 3.17, that the law which was given 400 years, 430 years prior, excuse me, the promise which came 430 years prior to the law, that that cannot nullify the promise. So the promise comes first, the law comes after, the law can't nullify the promise.

Sorry for saying it backwards there. So, yeah, the law comes later, but God still gave a promise. And Romans 9 says the promises still belong to the Jewish people. And Acts 3.19 and following say that the Messiah will remain in heaven until the time comes for the restoration of all things of which the prophet spoke.

And one of the things that constantly spoke of is the restoration of the Jewish people to the land. I would just say it's a promise God gave. It doesn't guarantee individual salvation, but it's a promise God gave and he keeps it.

You say, yeah, yeah, but what about curse for disobedience? Right, well, is God allowed to have mercy? Isn't that the whole thing we learned through the cross, that God has mercy on whom he has mercy?

And what's it say in Ezekiel 36 is the Jewish people were exiled in Babylon. God says I'm going to bring you back. I'm going to bring you back even though you're in unbelief, but my name is being blasphemed. The God of Israel looks like a weak and powerless God. What's wrong with the God of Israel?

So for my namesake, I'm going to bring you back. Yeah, it's laid out like that. My book, Our Hands Are Stained with Blood, will really help with that as well. Or just check out our short video, Is God a Zionist? That will help. Is God a Zionist?

You can find it on our YouTube channel or go to AskDrBrown.org forward slash consider this. Now, the legal boundaries that God ultimately promised in Genesis 15 and other places far exceed the present national land boundaries of Israel. We may not see those full legal boundaries until the Messiah returns. In other words, none of this is by merit. This is all by grace. God's not obligated to give the full legal boundaries as if there was full obedience and national belief in the Messiah. Right. So that may come in the future.

That it's nothing to fight a war over right now because this is all by grace and it's for God's reputation and God's honor. All right. Let's see. Scroll down. Answer that. Answer that. I'll leave off the name of that.

We won't put that one on the screen. But this God will just call Joe. Should Christians observe the feast days? Not in a legalistic way, not as if they are required to, but rather if it helps them feel in solidarity with the Jewish people. If they say, hey, God gave us these, gave them to Israel, never rescinded them, why not enjoy them? And if you can do them recognizing their prophetic meaning, recognizing their prophetic meaning in Yeshua from the cross to his return, then all the more is there meaning in them. If you do that thinking I will be more spiritual if I'm more Jewish, wrong. If you do it thinking God has required me to keep this as one of his commandments, wrong.

If you do this saying, hey, we're Gentile Christians who are part of the larger commonwealth of Israel and this is now part of our joint heritage, why not? God bless you. Wonderful. If you do it as part of your church, if you do it within a messianic congregation, wonderful. Great.

Or a community special event that you have where different groups come together, great. Wonderful. Now, 1 Corinthians 5, Paul is writing to the Gentile believers there and he's talking about sin and corruption in their midst and don't you know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump, right? He makes that comment, a little yeast causes all the dough to rise. And then he says, you know, get rid of the old yeast, take on the new yeast of them, the new life in the Messiah. And then he says, let us therefore keep the Passover Messiah or Passover, meaning our Passover lamb has been sacrificed for us, let us therefore keep the feast.

Now, some would say he really meant that literally. Let's keep the Passover. And he was exerting Gentile believers to do that. But since that's the only such reference in the New Testament in that regard, since we have no record of the early church, Gentile believers feeling a sense of obligation to keep all of the Jewish feast days. And since elsewhere, Paul warns against a Gentile trying to take on a Jewish identity. And just a couple chapters later, in the seventh chapter, beginning around verse 17 says, hey, if you're called, meaning called to the Messiah, if you're saved, if you're called circumcised, don't become uncircumcised. If you're called uncircumcised, don't become circumcised. What matters is keeping God's commandments, by which he means his moral commandments, the way he's called us to live. He doesn't even put circumcision in that category there, interestingly enough. So when it comes to salvation, these things are not essential.

But it's also possible Paul is speaking metaphorically, because he's dealing with a spiritual situation, and he's saying, hey, let's do this in a spiritual way. Let's see if there are any other questions that were posted here at Twitter. Just going to give it one more shot. Oh, I can post now.

No, no, because this is being recorded in advance during the special season. I'm just getting away for a week. So did we get everyone?

I'm just going to check one more time. Kevin, Talbot, Kenny, Jeff, Dancing Dad Bear. Yeah, we got that. Jeff Richards, Paleo conservative, and the one we just called Joe. Well, you know, I tell people, post now.

And they really took it seriously. Because normally we just get a flood, and it's so long that by the time we go to record or do the show, we can get to maybe the first 10 or 15 out of 30 or 50 or 100. But let me tell you why I love questions so much. I mean, I love to be in settings like this. When I've had mentor groups for years, maybe third year students in our ministry school or others, I've taught, always on my heart, shared things, and then basically said, hey, how many questions? I love an environment where questions are asked. And I think one reason is that I love to explore things with people together.

That many times they don't have an outlet. Many of the circles we're in, I talked last week with Jason Jimenez about that in his new book Challenging Conversations that church needs to have. That many Christian environments, you're stifled. Look, it can happen with any religious group.

I know Jews today who used to be ultra-orthodox and who are not, they're now secular, and Jews today used to be ultra-orthodox who are now followers of Yeshua. But what they had in common was they had questions, and they weren't allowed to ask their questions. They had questions, and they struggled with certain things, and they asked the rabbi or they asked the priest or they asked the pastor, and they got pushed down.

So I think it's really important that we have an environment where people can ask questions, where they are able to get their curiosity satisfied or their probing questions satisfied. So, you know, it's all different things. And then, just for whatever reason, I feel a grace to answer your questions. So keep them coming, and feel free if you've got in-depth questions. Maybe you're a Jewish person, and you're really struggling with questions about Jesus being the real Messiah. Maybe you're a Christian, and you've just got Jewish-related questions, and you can't call in on a Thursday. Well, write to our website.

Go to AskDrBrown.org, ASKDearBrown.org. There's a link to contact us, and we have one dedicated team member, a Russian-Israeli Jew with a PhD in Old Testament. And one of the things that he does, he teaches many classes and so on for different schools, but he answers all of our Jewish-related questions, and every answer to them I get copied on. So I see all the questions that are coming in and the answers he's providing. So if you have those questions, we're here to serve you. And for those who give and support our ministry, you help us do this, too.

This enables us to be a resource for the body. There's a lot of error. There's a lot of misunderstanding. People swing from the one extreme of Jew-hatred to the other extreme of wannabe Judaism, you know, that Gentiles think they have to become Jews. Or from Jewish rejection, you know, there's nothing, no promises for the Jewish people thinking if I'm just getting near a Jew and like rub their forehead, I get like a magic miracle, you know, just so or if I could just say something in Hebrew, then like everybody will be healed. And so if we can help get people away from extremes, help them reject replacement theology and the view that God is finished with the Jewish people as a whole. And as you know, promises that remain for the nation as a whole, just individual Jews can be saved. We get them away from that wrong theology without a hyper fascination like, oh, have these become a Jew or meet a Jew? If we can get them focused on Yeshua with a good heart for Jews and Gentiles, we're doing well.