Who Is HaSatan in Judaism?

So, what does Judaism think about Satan, the devil? Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. YouTube. Instagram.

Twitter. And that's our intent. Dig deeper. Get to the truth.

Not some superficial snapshot, but let's dig. Let's find out what the truth really says. Where the truth is really found. Because that's ultimately all we want is truth. What's the use of apparently being blessed by a lie or having an apparently good life based on a lie. We want truth. Because one day, that's the only thing that's going to remain is truth.

And if we've been standing on lies and false and deceptions, we're only going to be blown away either in this world or when we stand before God. So, I live 100% with every fiber of my being. As far as I'm conscious, I want God's truth.

Period. Wherever it leads. Whatever that means. Let that be your prayer as well. Something I've prayed over myself many, many times. That God would give me the courage to follow Him in His truth. Wherever it leads, regardless of cost or consequence.

And if we really know Him and are intimate with Him, we realize that's all that matters is His favor and His blessing and His smile. All right. Before I get into the subject matter that I want to talk about today, in terms of God and Satan, Hasatan, the adversary, the accuser in Jewish thought.

Before I get there, just want to mention one thing briefly. On yesterday's broadcast, as I was talking about the cancel culture, I made reference to LifeSite News having all of their videos removed from YouTube. They were just completely taken down, their channel with 300,000 subscribers removed. And they are pro-life, conservative Catholic, pro-life news site. And there was no indication initially in their posts of what the charges were, and they were not directly notified of specifics, but ultimately it's they allegedly violated YouTube's rules about coronavirus posts. So maybe they questioned some of the politically correct things being said or the mainstream opinion or whatever, put forth alternative ideas.

I don't know the details of it, but allegedly from what we could see, they were not censored for being pro-life, although we shall see if there was equal treatment of them and others in this regard, but COVID-related. So just wanted to mention that to you. Hey, I got a question for you.

Stanley posting on Facebook. Why don't you call? I've got phone lines open right now. 866-348-7884. Rather than mocking me as a so-called Messianic Jew doctor in quotes.

It is an errant doctorate, by the way. Why not call? You've got so much to say. You've got such brilliant insights. You can demolish my position scripturally. I'm paying for the airtime. You call and speak to our audience around the world. Go ahead. Come on, please. 866-344-TRUTH.

Tell me why I am so wrong. Oh, by the way, when we give invitations, I would say one out of a thousand times. Maybe that's exaggeration. One out of 500 times we get people actually willing to take the invitation to call in. Anyway, anyway, what happened today also in terms of the cancel culture, we have a separate video and article be coming out about that. Former MMA star and Hollywood TV actor, actress Gina Carano canceled, fired from her role in this major TV show on the Disney Channel, The Mandalorian. Obviously it's really big.

I'm not familiar with it, but apparently very, very big. And she had a post that was, well, crossed some politically incorrect lines and referenced Nazi Germany and things like that. And anyway, we won't get into that in the air now, but trust me, there is extreme hypocrisy in the cancel culture. It basically goes one way and ultimately it's, it's, it is the way of the PC leftist culture. That's the way it goes.

Okay. What does Judaism say about Satan, the devil? The devil does exist in Jewish thought. The devil is considered to be a powerful evil being in Jewish thought, but does not have the independence that you would say the devil has in Christian or New Testament thought, doesn't have the scope and power that Satan would seem to have in New Testament and Christian thought.

So there is the existence of the devil, but he plays a different role. Let's take a look first in the book of Job, Job chapter one. And, and we read a fascinating account there. It tells us there was a man in the land of woods named Job is blameless and upright, feared God, shunned evil, had seven sons, three daughters. And the account goes on to tell us his possessions were 7,000 sheep, 3000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 she-asses and a very large household.

That man was wealthier than anyone in the East. It was the customer of his son's told feast each on his day, sit in his own home. They invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. When around the feast days was over, Job would send word to them to sanctify themselves and rising early in the morning, he would make burnt offerings and one for each of them. For Job thought, perhaps by children of sin and blaspheme God in their thoughts, this is what Job always used to do. The Hebrew says, So one day the divine beings, literally the sons of God, sons of Elohim, translated new JPS version, the divine beings. So the sons of means having this particular nature.

So they have the heavenly nature, the nature of Elohim. So one day the divine beings presented themselves before the Lord and the adversary, Hasatan, came along with them. So it has the definite article, the adversary. In other words, it is not the Satan. Satan is a proper name. But in Hebrew, Satan simply means adversary and then secondarily accuser.

So Hasatan came along with them. So he's among these divine beings, but he's separate from them. And the Lord said to the adversary, So where have you been? The adversary answered the Lord.

I've been going around the earth, scouting things out, going back and forth. Now there are some who say that that was his role, that that was his divine role to go kind of like a spy on the earth. But because he is presented as the adversary, and what does he do?

Revelation 12, he accuses the brethren before the throne of God, right? So this is the very thing he's doing here. He's basically saying, hey, I'm checking out things on the earth and it looks good to me. In other words, it looks pretty evil to me.

It looks pretty wicked to me. That's what's implied here. And the Lord says to him, Have you noticed my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and shuns evil. So God is drawing attention to Job. And this whole thing has a larger plan and a larger purpose to get into in depth in my commentary on Job. Job, the faith to challenge God, an extraordinary experience to write a commentary on Job and work through the text for many, many years. So the Lord himself brings Job to Satan's attention because Satan's pretty much saying, hey, I got things where I want them. I like the way things are in the earth.

Yep, yep. Nobody's really going after God. No one's really serving God. And God, knowing what Satan is alleging, the adversary, Satan is alleging, he says, what about Job?

Nobody like him on the earth. And the Lord answered, excuse me, and the adversary answered the Lord for Yomar and said, Does Job fear God for nothing? Is there no reason? Why, it's you who fenced him around, him and his household, all that he has. You blessed his efforts to those possessions spread out in the land, but lay your hand upon all that he has and he will surely blaspheme you to your face. And the Lord replied to the adversary, see, all that he has is in your power, only do not lay a hand on him.

The adversary departed from the presence of the Lord. Okay, so and then we know what happens in the verses that follow, that all of his kids are killed, all of his possessions are taken. It's one calamity after another after another, but he doesn't curse God. He praises God. The Lord gives the Lord, takes away him in the name of the Lord, be praised.

So the charge of the adversary that no one worships God just because of God's goodness and because of who God is and serves God out of love and reverence, the adversary's accusation is shot down because Satan is basically saying, look, they serve you, people serve you for the benefits. Even this superstar Job you're pointing to, he just serves you because you give him a good life. Take it all away and he'll curse you. And of course, God won't do that because Job is not deserving to be smitten and judged by God, so God himself won't touch him, but in his providence allows the adversary to do it. So there are certain restraints that are put on him. All right, he can only go so far. He can't kill Job. And then the same scene repeats itself and God says remarkably to the adversary in the second chapter, you're moving me, inciting me to destroy him without a cause.

Wow, what a line. That's what God says to the adversary. The adversary says, oh yeah, skin for skin.

Come on, he's still alive. It's got his health. Take that from him and he'll curse you. So God allows the adversary to smite him.

Again, Satan who does that, it's Satan who carries out these ugly attacks on people. He allows him to do it and then at this point boils a horrific condition, torturous from head to toe, he's now on the dung heap, he's nothing, he's nobody. And his wife either out of compassion or frustration, either way says, enough, just curse God and die. What are you still holding down to your integrity? The very thing God commanded him for. God said to the adversary, he's holding on to his integrity. And the wife says, are you still holding on to your integrity?

Curse God and die. Job says, you talk like one of the foolish women. We're going to receive good things from God, not bad. And with all this, Job did not attribute folly to the Lord. He did not speak evil of the Lord. It's an extraordinary passage, extraordinary two chapters. I spent so much time on it in the commentary because there's so much going on.

But specifically, what does it tell us about how Satan, the adversary in the Old Testament, how do we get from there to the devil of the New Testament? We'll talk about that when we come back. Take your calls also. 866-34-TRUTH. 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. I was reading Psalm 121 in Hebrew a few days ago, and I just kept thinking of the beautiful Hasidic melody singing from the Psalm, that he who keeps Israel neither slumber nor sleep. And may every religious and devout Jew around the world praying for God's redemption, God's forgiveness, God's mercy individually, corporately, praying for the coming of Messiah, may their eyes be opened to the full truth of God's love and God's goodness. So before we go to your calls, 866-34-TRUTH, going back to Scripture, there is a constant in the Bible which is that God is God, and that even though he allows certain freedoms for his created agents, be they angels or humans, that he's still God. There are still boundaries, there are still restrictions. Human beings can only live so long, human beings can only do so much, and there's obviously evil in people's hearts that God restrains, otherwise we would have wiped ourselves out as a race millennia ago. In the same way, even the devil himself has certain restraints. 1 Peter 5 tells us he goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, but then Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10 that none of us have been subject to a temptation beyond what we're able to bear. In other words, God still puts protection around us, otherwise they wouldn't just wipe us out.

We'd be hit with temptation that we couldn't bear, or we'd be wiped out by one kind of attack or another. So there is real warfare, there is real battle, and yet God does not just allow things to go completely chaotic. Now, in the book of Job, we see that God has a larger purpose, and even though it seems inhumane to allow what he allowed, in the end it produces something extraordinary in Job that he would never want to exchange. In other words, rather to go through this hell to end up with the relationship with God he had, you say, but what about the loss of his children? That's horrific, that's utterly horrific. I mean, his possessions are restored double, God gives him 10 more children with the hint that the other 10 he'll meet in the world to come and be with them, and you don't just, you know, replace a lost child with a new child, so that's recognized in scripture as well.

It's not just against 20 children, that would almost be crass if that's all that was, as if they were just like cattle and other possessions. But, ultimately, what comes out of Job's life in the message of Job, ministers grace to hundreds of millions of people over the years, and in that sense, in the overall scheme of things, something that God said, this will be worth it for the overall benefit of the human race and for the glory that comes to God's name. But I just want to give you a glimpse of what Judaism teaches about Satan, okay? This is not for me to give an extensive critique or I differ, but just to give you this insight. So, from the Jewish Encyclopedia, by the way, which is online, it's about a century old, probably a little older than that, but still a classic work, Jewish Encyclopedia. So, if you're looking something up, you want to understand Jewish thought, Jewish literature, Jewish history up until that point, it's a great resource. So, let's look at what two of the contributors say in the Jewish Encyclopedia.

And just waiting for that text, we may have a screen that is frozen or something, but here we go. So, in the Bible, it says Satan is a term used in the Bible with the general connotation of adversary being applied to an enemy in war. So, there could be a human satan, a human adversary, to an accuser before the judgment seat.

So, you know, you've got somebody that's coming against you legally to any opponent. The word is likewise used to denote an antagonist who puts obstacles in the way. So, adversary, accuser, or the angel of God is described as opposing Balaam in the guise of Satan or adversary, so that the concept of Satan as a distinct being was not then known. Such a view is found, however, in the prologue to the book of Job where Satan appears together with other celestial beings who are sons of God before the deity replying to the inquiry of God as to whence he had come with the words from going to and fro throughout the earth, etc. So, in other words, this is the first time now that you see clearly in the Bible, Satan as this independent agent, as this celestial adversary, the one that later we come to know as the devil Satan in the New Testament. Okay, let's look in that same article and see what it says about Hasatan, Satan, in rabbinic literature, in Talmud, and in Midrash. The angelology of the Talmud proves that, according to the older view, until about 200 CE, punishment was inflicted by angels and not by Satan. In the course of time, however, official Judaism, beginning perhaps with Jonathan who does 279 absorb the popular concepts of Satan, which doubtless forced their way gradually from the lower classes to the most cultures. In other words, the popular beliefs became the mainstream beliefs. The later Midrashic collection, so collection of Jewish kind of homiletical thoughts on scripture, the later Midrashic collection, the more frequent is the mention therein of Satan, and so older Jewish literature not as much once you get into later rabbinic literature more and more.

The Palestinian Talmud, completed about 400, is more reticent in this regard, and this is the more noteworthy since its provenience, meaning where it comes from, is the same as that of the New Testament. Salma El, the lord of the Satans, was a mighty prince of angels in heaven. Satan came into the world with woman, so that he was created and is not eternal. Like all celestial beings, he flies through the air and can assume any forms of a bird, a stag, a woman, a beggar, or young man, etc.

And then, interestingly, says this. He, Satan, in Judaism, is the incarnation of all evil, and his thoughts and activities are devoted to the destruction of man. So that Satan, the impulse to evil, so Yetzer Harah, so in Judaism it's believed you have a lower nature and a higher nature, so the evil inclination versus the good inclination. So Satan and the impulse to evil and the angel of death are one and the same personality. He descends from heaven and leads astray, then ascends and brings accusations against mankind. Receiving the divine commission, he takes away the soul. In other words, he slays. He seizes upon even a single word, which may be prejudicial to man, so that no one should not open his mouth unto evil. In times of danger, he brings accusations. While he has power over all works of man, he cannot prevail at the same time against two individuals of different nationalities. That Samuel, a noted astronomer and teacher of the law, would start on a journey only when a gentile traveled with him, and so on.

You can look this up online, it's free. Jewish Encyclopedia, just look up the word Satan there and you'll find it easily. There is that one Talmudic saying that Satan comes down, he leads someone into temptation, then he goes up before God and accuses them. That's, is that diabolical or what? Hey, hey, I want you to do this.

I think you really want to sleep with this other woman, even though you're married. Hey, you steal this from the job. You do this. And then the moment the person does it, the same one that tempted the person goes up before God. So look at what they're doing.

Look, you should get them. Look at what they're doing. It's terrible. That is really diabolical nature, is it not? Now you say, well, what is, what is Satan doing according to the New Testament? Because this, this pulls the veil back.

It tells us more of what's actually going on. Well, we know that his power has been broken by the cross and by the resurrection of Jesus and that in Jesus, in Yeshua, we have authority and power over the devil. We understand that. At the same time, we understand that there's warfare and attack and that we're in a fallen world and that these bodies are ultimately fallen bodies and that we will not experience complete and total victory over Satan until he is utterly vanquished and destroyed and that's in the eternal age. He's bound during the millennial kingdom and then cast down forever suffering and, and no demon, no devil, nothing like that in the world to come to tempt or pull us away. But we do have spiritual authority over him. We are not to be subject to him.

We do not need to be slaves to fear the big bad devils coming after us or his demonic hordes are coming after us. We know the warfare is real. We know there are real battles in the heavenlies.

We know these things are not to be taken lightly. At the same time, Yeshua says at the end of Matthew's gospel, all authority in heaven and earth is given to me. He explains to his disciples in Luke the 10th chapter that he's given them authority over all the power of the evil one. We're told in Jacob James the fourth chapter that if we resist the devil he will flee and in 1 Peter 5 we're told to stand firm against his attacks. And then in Revelation 12 he's still doing what he's doing. He's making accusation.

Now how does he do that? And I want to pause here for a moment and then we're going to go to the calls and get to just spend the rest of the rest of the show taking your calls. I want you to think of this. Satan's the accuser of the brethren, right? It's one thing to constructively criticize, to say, hey, I take issue with this.

This is unhelpful. Let's fix this. Let's do better. Accusation is pointing out fault with the goal of destroying and hurting and then exaggerating and even lying. That's what accusation does. Satan does it, but often we're his lips, we're his voice, we're his tongue, we're his mouthpiece. The way we speak about each other on social media, the way we attack, the way we freely post things, we give our opinions, it's demonic. It's really demonic. It's ugly. It's wrong.

It's destructive. And it's one thing to really be burdened. Maybe you think I'm wrong in some area and you're really burdened. Lord, help Michael Brown. Lord, bring him into the fullness of your blessing and truth and so on. Hey, you think I'm wrong somewhere and you're praying for me?

Wonderful. There's nothing wrong with that, right? It's another thing where you're like, that Mike Brown. And Lord, you know he's this and he's this and he's this and it's just opinions and bias and all that. And never pray like that. If I think you're dead wrong on something, I pray redemptive prayers for you. I don't go before the throne of God and give a list of all the evil, terrible things about you. Now, if I know for a fact someone is destroying other people's lives, I'll say, Father, you see what's happening.

You see their life. Lord, restrain them from doing evil. Bring them into God. I still pray a prayer that's a redemptive prayer in the midst of it.

Let us not be accusers of the brethren. And let's pray for relationships between the United States and Israel. President Biden has not yet called Prime Minister Netanyahu. After a month, he's not yet called.

So we need to pray for that relationship, for God's purpose and God's will. We'll be right back with your calls. Welcome, friends, to 30 Jewish Thursday. Hey, 45 minutes from now, a little less than that, 4.15 Eastern Time, we will be continuing with our weekly exclusive YouTube chat. If you've never been part of that or if you're part of it regularly, it's on the Ask Dr. Brown YouTube channel.

So A-S-K-D-R, Brown. Make sure while you're there, just subscribe so you don't miss any time we go live or post a new video. So Ask Dr. Brown on YouTube, and we'll go 45 minutes or an hour, and I just respond to questions that you post. All right, so that will be starting at 4.15 Eastern Time, our exclusive weekly YouTube chat.

And with that, we go to the phones, starting with Cindy in Des Moines, Iowa. Welcome to the line of fire. Thank you, sir. Thank you for taking my call.

You're welcome. I'm in a very civil online dialogue with an Orthodox Jew, after I mentioned that belief in the Godhead was core doctrine, until it became heretical in the second century. And he challenged me, saying that this was just a small, marginalized heretical sect that believed this. And I've been trying to find a little bit more in-depth information on how, was it just a small group? Was it a core belief?

Was it somewhere in between? And as far as, what were the circumstances under which it actually became a heresy? Now, okay, when you're talking about it, or a small group, what's the it specifically that you're talking about? Well, as far as the belief in the Godhead, during the, you know, during, as they were reading the Tanakh, for Christ, that belief in the Godhead was a core belief, or was it just a small heretical sect that actually... All right, so when you say, right, okay, what I'm trying to get clarified, when you say belief in the Godhead, what specifically do you mean? Well, I guess belief in the Trinity, although, I mean, there are instances where you could see the Spirit or...

Right, okay, right, right. So there was no belief in a, quote, Trinity in Old Testament times in an explicit way. Rather, we could make strong arguments based on the Hebrew Bible, that God is complex in his unity, that he is ultimately triune, as expressed in Father, Son, and Spirit. But there were definitely Jewish beliefs that looked at what would be called two powers in heaven, or different aspects of manifestations of God. And a good book to read on that is Alan Siegel, Two Powers in Heaven. It's well known by a Jewish scholar. So that'll give you background into various Jewish beliefs that might, you might say, can build, with those, you can build a bridge from those beliefs to what Christians would believe. And not so much the way it's fully articulated in the creeds and things like that, but just basic concepts. Do you have my series on answering Jewish objections to Jesus?

No, I don't. Okay, so volume two, and I have some of these just individual videos that can be watched for free if you search them on our YouTube channel. But volume two, I devote a large section of that book to objections to the Godhead, the idea that God doesn't have a son, or the idea that God is not complex in his unity, or the idea that the Ruach HaKodesh, the Holy Spirit, is not a personal entity. I devote a lot of time in volume two of answering Jewish objections to Jesus to demonstrate that there are Jewish concepts. You mentioned the Memrah, so God expressed by his Word or the Word as a separate entity from God. Or the Shekhinah, which is his manifest presence on the earth and yet is divine and yet separate from God. In Jewish thought, the Shekhinah carries some of the feminine aspects of God and goes into exile with God's people. And there are Hasidic Jews who pray for the reunification of God, meaning that Israel is fully restored from exile and then the Shekhinah is fully restored to God. Concepts like that, the Sefirot, the divine emanations, the ten emanations, which comes later in Jewish mystical thought. But I get into all of those and then go back into the Hebrew Bible itself to see what it reveals and the angel of the Lord and things like that in terms of demonstrating God's complex unity. So volume two of my series answering Jewish objections to Jesus will give you a lot of info on that. And then more specifically, just in terms of ancient Jewish beliefs that ties in with your question, Alan Segal's book, Two Powers in Heaven.

If you look into those, you'll have plenty of good information for your Orthodox friend. Okay? Very good. Thank you so much.

You are very welcome. And again, folks, search my YouTube channel, Ask Dr. Brown. I've got a whole series of videos there, answering Jewish objections to Jesus. And you can find them on our website as well as AskDrBrown.org.

And then a whole class. You can take a 22-hour class on countering the counter missionaries. All the info is on our website. All right, God bless. Thank you for the question. 866-34-TRUTH. We go to Karen in Mocksville, North Carolina. Thanks for calling the line of fire.

Oh, I enjoy your program so much, Dr. Brown. A question I've puzzled with for a number of years is, why have the Jews been so hated over the centuries? I don't understand that. Is it because they were God's chosen people? And if that were the case, God could have chosen some other group of people, and the hatred would be shown to them, I would say.

Correct. So I agree with your premise that there's something about the Jewish people being chosen by God, and therefore singled out, which have made them objects of satanic attack and with that human attack, and that it's not so much about the Jewish people themselves, for better or for worse, but about the fact that they were specifically chosen by God. So I get into that a lot in my book, Our Hands Are Staying with Blood, a chapter called A Diabolical Plot, where I talk about Satan's effort to wipe out the Jewish people, and I go through the various theories that people have given as to why Jews have been hated around the world. You know, one idea is, well, you always have to have a scapegoat when there's suffering in the society, but that begs the question, why always the Jews?

Why do they get scapegoated? Then another is, well, Jews, because of practicing Judaism, are different, and people don't like what's different. True, but then how do you explain, say, Nazi Germany, where the Jews were thoroughly German, where they were, in many cases, more German than Jewish, thoroughly assimilated in so many ways, non-religious, why were they hated?

So that breaks down. Well, Jews control all the money. Well, through much of Jewish history, Jews have been impoverished. You know, the Fiddler on the Roof kind of story is very common in terms of Jews being impoverished and poverty-stricken through the centuries.

You know, so I go through the different theories and say, okay, none of these really work in a universal way, where you can connect the dots, you know, from one culture to another to another. And then you say, well, what about Deuteronomy 28, Leviticus 26, the curses for disobedience? Isn't some of this the result of Jewish disobedience?

Yes, for sure. Amos 3, 1, God says to Israel, you only have I known out of all the families of the earth, therefore I will punish you for your iniquities. So for sure, some Jewish suffering has been the direct result of Jewish disobedience, but much of it can't be explained on that level. And the over-intense hatred and the horrors of what happened through history have to go beyond Jewish disobedience. So for me, the bottom line is, because the Jewish people have been specially chosen by God, Satan specially hates the Jewish people. And because the Jewish people must welcome the Messiah back, and because God has promised that the Jewish people will continue as a distinct people, no matter what, because of those things, Satan wants to wipe them out. If he can wipe out the Jewish people, it's a direct assault on God. It makes God's word untrue. And there are no Jewish people to welcome back the Messiah.

So there are big consequences with it. And I, years back, in the 90s, I did lectures at Yale University and at Columbia University, and I laid out the thesis that there was no rational explanation for antisemitism, that ultimately it had to be supernatural and diabolical. This was at Yale and at Columbia, at the invitation of some Christian groups. And after my presentation and going through all the arguments, I then fielded questions in one of the cases, I think, for up to about two hours. And nobody could come up with a better explanation than the devil did it. In fact, I remember one gentleman, I believe of Swedish descent, at Columbia, who posited a thesis that it was apparently supernatural, but that was just because we did not know more, and his ultimate thesis was aliens were behind it. I said, that's one of the best answers I've heard so far, because it acknowledges there's no rational explanation.

But then I demonstrated to him why the alien idea didn't work either, and he accepted my argument. So, yeah, it's a serious issue. Again, it does not mean that Jews are not guilty of things. In other words, if someone takes issue with some of Israel's policies, that doesn't make the person an antisemite. If someone is working with a Jewish businessman and the guy's dishonest, you say, yeah, that guy's dishonest because you call an individual Jew dishonest, doesn't make you an antisemite. But to be an antisemite is to demonize the Jewish people as people, to falsely accuse them as a people, to paint these broad pictures of Jews as a people, or to demonize and delegitimize Israel as a nation. That's what crosses the line, and we really see Satan raging. My newest book, Christian Antisemitism, talks about this rising again in our own day, right in America, right within the church. So we must expose it and stuff out that false ideology and pray for Israel's protection as well as for Israel to turn to the Messiah.

So that's your answer, chosen by God and therefore especially hated. Okay. All right. Well, thank you so much. You're welcome.

You're welcome. You know, the other thing that I get into when I've given these lectures are in Our Hands Are Stained with Blood. In Christian Antisemitism, those two books, is the irrationality of the charges, the irrationality of the attacks, the craziness of some of the stuff that's said about Jewish people. And we keep hearing it over and over and over again, and that is partly because it's Satanically inspired.

In other words, the lie becomes even bigger, becomes even more extreme, even crazier. If you've ordered Christian Antisemitism and you have the book, if you enjoyed the read, please post a review on Amazon and anywhere else where you have access, Goodreads, et cetera. Let other folks know, because we will have the bashers.

It hasn't happened yet, but invariably we'll have the bashers and the attackers. People don't even read it, but the antisemites will be attacking it. So if you've been blessed by the book, a great way to help spread the word, tell friends on social media, take a picture of it, hold it up, say, hey, I'm reading this. I encourage you to read it. And when I say blessed, I mean, it's disturbing content, but it's true.

And it does end with triumph. Jesus, Yeshua is coming back where? To Jerusalem.

There's a reason for it. If you don't have the book yet, it's available everywhere. Christian Antisemitism Confronting the Lies in Today's Church. All right, we'll be right back with your calls. It's The Line of Fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker and theologian, Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution.

Get into The Line of Fire now by calling 866-3-4-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. The sounds of lamb.

Yeah, those blessed me decades and decades ago. The crucified lamb. Michael Brown, welcome to The Line of Fire, 866-3-4-TRUTH on this 30-Jewish Thursday. So, less than a half hour from now, 4.15 Eastern Time, we continue on the Ask Dr. Brown, ASKDearBrown YouTube channel. So join me for exclusive weekly chat. Every question of every kind we get asked.

We just tackle as many as we can. All right, let us go back to the phones, and we go to Lauren on Long Island. Where on Long Island specifically, Lauren? Stony Brook. Stony Brook, yeah.

We lived in St. James, and I taught at a ministry school in Stony Brook for a few years in the 80s. Oh, wow. You've lost your accent, Dr. Brown.

Yeah, I did. Long ago. You know, it actually started a little when I started teaching there in my late 20s, and we had people from different parts of America. So I was just around more students and others who didn't have the heavy New York accent. And then the director was from St. James, and I taught at a university. And then the director was from Scotland, and he would always make fun of my New York accent and stuff, and coffee. So I think just little by little, and then living out.

But trust me, if you ever see my demeanor at the airport, always pushing, hustling, moving, I still got the New York spirit. Oh, that's great. Thank you. My question is in regards to your thoughts on the social justice gospel and black liberation theology that's prevalent in so many evangelical churches today, especially in mine, in a university community, and how it relates to anti-Semitism. And my concern for this being another Jesus and another gospel, because I have heard in, for example, in a prayer meeting, people pray a prayer like, help Israel not to be so self-righteous. So I'm extremely burdened about this, yet I don't want to be divisive, and my body is, in my local church, it's really hurting me, the length to which this has infiltrated this local body. Right, right. And I'm sure this is not an isolated incident, even though you mentioned, you know, Stony Brook and the university there and the liberal school, and that does influence the atmosphere.

But I'm sure what you're experiencing, many others are. So let's put this in three categories. Category one is wherever racial injustice remains, wherever this is a live issue, it's something we should look at, consider, understand. And I was at a call with some leaders the other day, and the concept of Make America Great came up, and one of the black brothers said, hey, it means something very different in our community than in yours. And he was saying, I hate the direction things are going in America with gay activism, with abortion, you know, other things like that. He said, I'm conservative in the culture wars, he said, but on the other hand, it's never been better to be a black in America than now, you know. So we want to, we want to be sensitive to history, hear things through different perspectives.

That's good. And just my callers over the years have educated me in terms of life experience I didn't have. I've never been racially profiled. I don't know what it's like to grow up in certain environments and have certain viewpoints just based on the color of skin, because I didn't live through that myself. So even though I know it exists, it's just helpful to hear from others.

So you don't want to react against what could be a valid cause or concerns about mistreatment of police or the justice system. Yeah, let's look at that, examine it. That's one thing. Second thing is a liberation gospel, which really is another gospel. It is not redemption through the cross.

It is not based on the universality of human sin and the need for a savior. It is, it is really a political pushing back against perceived injustices and somehow draping the gospel in that. And that really does get off track very, very seriously. So we put separately the issue of racial injustice or inequity where it remains. Let's look at that, examine it, understand it, and move forward together to fix it. That's one thing. Second thing, a liberation gospel, black liberation gospel, or the larger agenda of the BLM movement with Marxist ideas and things.

That's a separate category and that's really dangerous. And then the third one is that often what this is the demonization of Israel, that the equivalent to black Americans or the equivalent to native Americans would be the Palestinians. This is the way it's looked at. And the equivalent of white supremacist America is genocidal evil Israel.

So everything is painted in a very caricatured way. Rather than recognizing Jewish suffering through the centuries, rather than recognizing Jewish history as slaves in Egypt, rather than recognizing Jews being expelled from country after country over the years. You know, when Jews learn American history, it's not in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue. When they learn their history, it's in 1492, all non-baptized Jews were expelled from Spain.

So there's just a different perspective. Two out of all, two out of every three Jews in Europe wiped out in the Holocaust. So to make the Jewish people know that the evil occupiers, the genocidal apartheid state is of course very destructive and failing to recognize the larger issues involved. So it's really a matter of conversation, education, dispelling myths, pushing past stereotypes. You know, maybe people grew up and their friends who were richer and better educated were Jews. So there's kind of an unconscious bias against Jews. I remember, Lauren, during an outpouring of the spirit that took place in the early 80s that I was part of, that friends started coming to Nancy and me to confess bad attitudes that they had had for years. And I remember one of them telling me that Jewish kids in this class were always smarter and resented Jews and he carried that resentment towards me.

I was shocked to hear it. This is a brother in the Lord. So you never know what underlying things there are as well. But do your best to have honest conversations. And if you can, and there's an ability to hear each other, great, you can move forward. If not, if it really gets extreme, sometimes you just have to step back.

It's unfortunate, but we are going the way of a lot of extremes these days. Thank you. Yeah, and one last thought, Lauren. If you can get your friends or folks in the church to recognize Jewish history, in my book, Her Hands Are Stained with Blood is an eye-opener.

People understand what Jews have suffered through history knows not to just make Jews into victims, but to say, hey, hey, look, there's, we, we've been through our share here. Let's, let's, let's, let's look at things differently together. Hey, thanks for the call.

Um, 866-34-TRUTH. No, we don't go there. Uh, let us go to, uh, our friend Eddie in Madison, Connecticut.

Welcome to the line of fire. Dr. Brown. Nice opening today with Joe, but just what we were fighting about this week while talking about it in the Bible study.

But here's what I thought, Dr. Brown. When you said that Joe was an upright guy, a servant of the Lord, it made me think this. I said, okay, God and Joe, the relationship is sound, it's strong, it's beautiful.

You go through the Torah, you hear God saying, I will be your God. You will be my people. So now picture I'm a Jew, Jewish family living in the time of Jesus. And I say to my family, Hey guys, I don't know what went wrong here. Everything was going good, but now I guess we got to go another way here.

My family said, what are you talking about? I said, listen, all this stuff in the past with God, everything was good with us, but now it looks like we got to go this new route here. So let's try to, it made me say, wait a minute, something's wrong with this because how could God say, I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I don't really love you that much anymore. I mean, I still love you, but you got to know a different way. Yeah. So let's come at it from a different angle.

I love the question. How could Job be considered upright and blameless in God's sight? If that's the case, why do you need a savior? How could Noah be considered upright and blameless? In fact, go to the New Testament, Luke, the first chapter, it tells us about Zechariah and Elizabeth, the parents of John the Immerser, that they were blameless. And Paul says of himself in Philippians 3, there's a Pharisee, he was blameless under the law.

So what's, what's the concept? There, there is a right way that people do live. There are God-fearing people who in response to God's drawing in their lives are, are living lives that would be considered outwardly righteous, are living lives that, that meet certain standards and that God is pleased with on a certain level. At the same time, this very man, Job, God exposes junk in his life. He ends up repenting because there is not an ultimate cleanness inside of us. There is not an ultimate righteousness inside of us. In other words, there is a righteousness under the law and there is a good conduct that God approves. There are many human beings on the planet like that.

Yeah, not hundreds of millions, but there are. And I'm sure there are devout rabbis and devout Muslims and devout people and other faiths that are living lives that are very upright and ethical in many, many ways. But ultimately, in the sight of God, in terms of can we, by our own marriage, enter into his presence and say, accept me?

No, no, because we all fall short. And, and notice that Job in his system is still offering sacrifices. So even under the law, there was, there was atonement that was there. It was always part of it, right?

It was, it was always part of it. We see no one the way that we see part of it. We see no one in the Bible is not perfect either. But the atonement system was part of it. So you, you, you seek to live a righteous life, please God honor him, but you still need cleansing. And ultimately, when you see catastrophe after catastrophe happen to our people as a people, and exile and destruction, the temple, you realize, okay, we need a Messiah, we need help.

So it's always going in the same direction. And so much of the Old Testament narrative is to get us to recognize we need help. We're not as healthy as we thought.

We're sick, we need a physician. And that's why in the fullness of time God sends the Messiah. And even as a reminder, the temple's never been rebuilt so far, in almost 2000 years, a constant reminder, we fall short, need grace, and need mercy, and need forgiveness, and need a Messiah.

It's a very, very biblical and Jewish concept. Hey, as always, good talking to you. All right, friends, 15 minutes from now, join me at the Ask Dr. Brown YouTube channel for our weekly chat. God bless.