Yeshua and the Passover

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We'll talk today about Yeshua, the Passover King. 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. If you have a Jewish-related question, now is the time to call at the bottom of the hour. We're going to bring on a special guest to talk about his book, The Passover King. Welcome to Thirdly Jewish Thursday.

This is Michael Brown. Here's the number to call, 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884. Any Jewish-related questions we'll be tackling soon. And of course, we want to talk about this season of the year, Passover Easter. Remember, in the beginning, there was one holiday. There was one sacred season, Passover. And in the midst of that sacred season, Yeshua, the Passover Lamb, died for our sins and rose from the dead. His death coincided with the Passover sacrifice. His resurrection coincided with the celebration of first fruits. The outpouring of the Spirit that followed us 50 days later corresponded with Shavuot Pentecost.

You're familiar with that. But remember that in the beginning, the early church did not separate. It was not even, quote, the early church in terms of Christian church, new religion. But the believers, mainly Jewish believers, then Gentiles, added to them, celebrated Messiah's death and resurrection in the midst of Passover. And even Paul writes to the Corinthians, some of whom were God-fearing Gentiles and in the synagogues and heard the Gospel in the synagogues, so they were familiar with the biblical calendar and Jewish customs. Paul writes to them in 1 Corinthians 5 and says, Messiah, our Passover, meaning our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed for us, therefore let us keep the feast, either metaphorically or literally. In either case, it was during the Passover that Messiah's death and resurrection was celebrated.

Then a tradition developed that divided the Eastern Church from the Western Church. One tradition said that we follow the Jewish calendar, so the 14th of Nisan and so on, that this is when we do what we do. And in the midst of Passover, we celebrate Messiah's death and resurrection. Others said, no, it's a Friday and a Sunday, it's fixed. Again, think of Christmas, which is December 25th, whatever day that falls on, versus Thanksgiving, which is the fourth Thursday of November, whatever date that falls on. So it's going to be based on day, based on date. There was a division, and then by the time of Constantine, there was outright anti-Semitism saying, we don't want to follow the customs of the Jews. We don't want to be following the Jewish community's calendar and waiting on the Jewish community to set dates.

No, no, we do it when we do it. And this is the original way. This is claimed to be the apostolic way. Of course, the apostolic way would have been in conjunction with the Passover. So what I believe is the best and right thing to do, to take a lot of reformation for this to happen, is that during the Passover season as Jews around the world celebrate Passover, that the Friday and Sunday within that are when we celebrate Messiah's death and resurrection. Others can argue that, but that's, if I was going to do it, that's how I would encourage it being done.

I understand it shifts in terms of, okay, that's kind of a hybrid, but that's how I would do it. In any case, in any case, can we focus on what the season is about? It's not Easter eggs, it's not Easter bunnies. It's about Messiah's death and resurrection and the ultimate liberation from bondage and the greater exodus. So we think back to the early exodus and look at the greater exodus, one from sin and bondage through Messiah Jesus.

866-34-TRUTH. Before I go to your calls, let me tell you about my book, Resurrection. It was published last year, the goal being to come out right before Passover Easter, which it did.

There's only one problem, something else hit right around that time, COVID. So we did not really get to talk about the book as much as we want it or give it the publicity that we want it. And I think you'll find it totally eye-opening.

It's not time sensitive, meaning it could be written in the year 2020 or in the year 2040. In other words, it is a timeless truth kind of book. But there's a really neat sociological proof that we give. Sociological argument for the resurrection of Jesus. And I believe it's been laid out and fleshed out in a deeper way here than it has in other places.

Excuse me. And I was delighted to get endorsements by two of the great scholars on the resurrection survey, Gary Habermas and Mike Licona, who appreciated the book. Okay, so here's the argument.

Here's the argument. The title of the book, which is readily available online and on our website, AskDirectorBrown.org, the title of the book is Resurrection, investigating a rabbi from Brooklyn, a preacher from Galilee, and an event that changed the world. So who is the rabbi from Brooklyn? Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known as the Lubavitcher Ghebbi, the grand rabbi of Lubavitcher Hasidim, ultra Orthodox Jews, he lived from 1992 to 1994.

So he died in 1994 at the age of 92. And when he died, his movement largely looked to him as the Messiah, arguably the most influential leader, Jewish leader of the 20th century, and one of the most influential Jewish leaders in modern history. And to this day, you can go to Israel and you'll see signs pointing to him, welcome King Messiah. Yeah, among his most devout followers, they still believe him to be the Messiah.

But overwhelmingly, the movement has moved on. The major spokespeople, the most prominent voices say that he could have been the Messiah and he was the greatest leader of the generation, but that he wasn't actually the Messiah. Now, here's what's really interesting.

I want you to hear this. Shortly after he died, when his disciples were saying he's going to rise from the dead, you're going to see, you watch, there are even some keeping vigil by his grave waiting for him to rise from the dead. And then when he was hailed as the Messiah, even after his death and watch, and he's going to come again and you watch what's going to happen, there were other Jewish leaders who raised their voices in horror and said, what is this? This is madness.

Judaism teaches that the Messiah will not die before finishing his mission, but your teaching is like Christianity, that the Messiah dies and then in the future he'll fulfill his mission. So they raised their voices, most prominently Professor David Berger, based in New York, based in Brooklyn, and wrote about this and said people in the Orthodox Jewish world should be up in arms about this. This is scandalous. This is heresy.

This must be outwardly and clearly and loudly rejected. So the argument was that you can see how Christianity developed also. There was this cognitive dissonance. There was this refusal to accept reality. There was this belief, this myth that Jesus actually rose from the dead when in fact he didn't.

And here's the parallel. This was the argument that was being given to Lubavitcher Rebbe, look what's happened with his followers. They were sure he was going to rise, they were sure he was the Messiah, now they said he's not going to die, and now he died, okay, he's going to rise, and they keep giving a spiritual answer, they keep putting it off, and they're in complete deception, just like the Christians. That was the argument. In point of fact, the argument works in the reverse. The argument works in favor of the resurrection of Yeshua. You say, I don't get it.

Okay, let me explain, are you ready? When you think of the followers of the Rebbe, they were sure he wasn't going to die. I'm talking about the most devout, the ones that were publicly proclaiming him as Messiah, but it was a large, large part of the movement that looked to him as Messiah. And he had had two terrible strokes the last two years of his life, so he was unable to communicate for months, unable to speak, and he could not stop this, he could not deny that, no, I'm not the Messiah, he couldn't say that, so they were egged on all the more with faith, confidence could happen.

You watch. He's not going to die. He's about to be glorified. They had beepers in those days. They had a Messiah hotline. You could call him the latest news because he didn't rise.

It dissipated. Oh, yeah, there are still some that proclaim him as Messiah. You can go to the headquarters in Brooklyn that have been basically taken over by those who believe he's a Messiah, but the movement as a whole worldwide no longer believes that, no longer teaches that outwardly, no longer holds to that. And in point of fact, none of them, hear me, none of them claim to have physically seen him rise from the dead or to have encountered him physically risen from the dead face to face.

You know, perfume and spices, whatever, to care for his body and honor the dead. They were shocked when he wasn't in the tomb. And then when they came back and reported it to the disciples, the disciples didn't believe them. They were even, you know, Thomas, I'm not going to believe.

Even when they all tell him, we've seen, no, I'm not going to believe until I physically can touch him myself. And then the beliefs only intensified and deepened. And these men were willing to die for their faith because they had seen him face to face.

So you actually have the opposite. The whole argument with cognitive distance, well, they just didn't accept reality. Well, no, they weren't expecting this and the gospels paint them in very negative terms. They were not expecting the Messiah to rise. And yet he did to their shock and then to their lifelong solid faith. It's the exact opposite with the Lebovitz of Ghebbe. No one is claiming that they have seen him physically face to face after his death.

That's because he didn't rise. So I wrote the book Resurrection to give a further demonstration of the proof of Jesus rising from the dead. We'll be right back on the other side of the break. Welcome, friends, to the line of fire. I'm not sure if we're having a demonic attack because we're talking about the resurrection of the Messiah or if there are some technical problems in the air, but we are working hard to solve them.

If you say, what problems? Well, good. The signal is loud and clear, 866-34, truth bottom of the hour. I'll be joined by my guest, Travis Snow, talking about his book, The Passover King. But now we'll go to the phones.

We'll start in Reno, Nevada. Trevor, welcome to the line of fire. Hello. Can you hear me? Are you there?

I'm there. Barely. Are you talking in the phone? Yeah.

How about now? That's better. Yep. All right.

Thanks so much for everything. Now it sounds like you're yelling in my ear. Okay. Oh, no.

You're welcome. All right. So my question, you know, I've been very surprised by Christian anti-Semitism and really wasn't aware of it, and have a strong conviction that Christians need to definitely distance themselves and change perspective, but I've hit a brick wall talking with some leaders in my area about this, but specifically they say that Israel is a secular nation, and to that I have no response. I was wondering if you could weigh in on that and give me a little information. Yeah. Explain why that would be an issue. In other words, if God brought the Jewish people back to the land to fulfill prophecy and said that he'd bring them back to the land even in an unclean, spiritual state, why does the nature of the state of Israel actually matter? Right, and their claim is that they're just not the holy nation anymore, that the church has replaced it, and I've studied a little bit into that topic, but I've just, it's become really like a runaround with some of them, so I'm not really sure what to do in that situation or what information to draw on. Right.

Okay. It is a terribly wrong, right, right, so the first thing is to ask the question, did God say that he would scatter the Jewish people in judgment? The answer is yes. Did God say he would regather them in mercy? The answer is yes, so how else to explain the modern state of Israel if God scattered the Jewish people in judgment, and when he judges, no one can undo his judgment, right? When he blesses, no one can curse, when he curses, no one can bless. If he scattered the Jewish people in his anger, then who regathered them?

How do we account for the modern state of Israel? Did the devil do it? Did the devil overpower God? Did the UN overpower God? Did the Jewish people themselves overpower God?

Nonsense. So the God who scattered is the God who regathered. This is not about Jewish faithfulness, this is about God's promise, that's number one. Number two, he said that he would bring the Jewish people back to the land in unbelief, so we're not surprised that the nation is not a fully holy nation to God, but it is this nation that will welcome the Messiah back, that will come to repentance at the end of the age, so that's the second thing. The third thing is that Israel is a distinctly Jewish state. The Sabbath is universally observed in Israel, meaning that the seventh day is the Sabbath. For most Israelis, it is a non-work day. The biblical calendar is the calendar that's followed. There's not Thanksgiving and Christmas, you know, and things like that, but Passover, Hanukkah, et cetera. And citizenship is based on Jewishness, you know, it's the first and foremost thing. So it is a Jewish state, and it is somewhat religious, but it does not force religion on everyone. But if you ask your friends, well, who regathered the Jewish people, if God scattered them in judgment, who kept them all these years, and who regathered them, what would they say to that?

Awesome, thank you, that definitely answered even my follow-up question. So I was asking you rhetorically, because there's more I wanted to say, I just wanted to lay that foundation first, but if you ask them who's responsible for preserving the Jewish people and bringing them back to the land, what do you think they would say to that? I don't think they'd have an answer, because then at that point they're either claiming to know what God's doing or violating scripture, and that is the opinion that I hold, which is why it's so surprising to me that they would push back on that. Right.

So then another issue would be, okay, what would be the answer to this? Where does the New Testament ever call the church spiritual Israel? Never uses that term. The New Israel doesn't use that term. Where it speaks of the, quote, Israel of God, the Israel of God in Galatians 6, 16, that's not talking about Gentile believers, that's talking about Jewish believers in Jesus.

Paul's making clear, hey, I'm not throwing them under the bus. Peace to all who live by this rule, the things I'm teaching you Gentiles, you don't have to become Jews in order to be saved and right with God, and to the Israel of God, meaning to Jews who believe in Jesus. So that's another thing, the idea of the church being the spiritual Israel, the Israel of God.

No, that's never described in those terms. And then here's the last thing I would do. I would just, I'd take out a Bible with them, and I'd say, okay, let's go through Romans 9, 10, and 11, and let's go through verse by verse. So let's read it together, okay? You go through it verse by verse, and it starts off, Paul's broken heart for the Jewish people because they're lost without the Messiah, right? But the promises are still theirs. Promises are still theirs. Even in unbelief, God doesn't take his word back, the people will not experience the blessing, they will not experience the reality of the promises, but the promises are still theirs because God made them, and God's not fickle, double-minded, God doesn't change his mind on things, say one thing one day and then reverse it the next. And in fact, when he swears on oaths, that's it, there's nothing higher. So then you get to Romans 9, 6, not all Israel is Israel, and they say, ah, you see, that's it, the church is Israel.

No, no, no. See what he's saying, he's saying there's a remnant within Israel. The whole nation is not an obedience, there's a remnant receiving the promises within the nation. That's the Israel within Israel. Now you keep reading, and he'll keep talking about Israel, Israel, Israel, Israel, 10 times more in Romans 9, 10, 11, and every time he's speaking of the nation as a whole. So he tells us there's an Israel within Israel, but now let me talk to you about the nation as a whole, Israel as a whole, Israel as a whole rejecting the Messiah, Israel as a whole, I've reached out my hands to a disobedient people, Israel as a whole failed to obtain what it wanted, Israel as a whole. And then we get to Romans 11, 25, I don't want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, lest you become arrogant, hardness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in. And so, on the heels of this, provoked by this, all Israel will be saved. The Israel that is hardened, the Israel that has been rejecting the Messiah, the nation as a whole, there will be a national turning, all Israel will be saved as it is written.

And then what's quoted? The Redeemer will come from Zion and to all who turn from ungodliness in Jacob. The church is not Jacob. It's speaking about ungodly, non-believing, non-Messianic Jews. They will turn to Messiah. And then what does Paul say?

The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable. Right now, these Jewish people are your enemies for the gospel. They're your enemies because of the gospel, but God's gifts and calling are without repentance. And these people are loved on account of the patriarchs.

So it's beautiful. Paul lays it out indisputably when you go through Romans 9, 10, 11. That's why the vast majority of Roman scholars recognize that when Paul said all Israel shall be saved, he didn't mean, he wasn't speaking of the church.

Hey, thank you, Trevor, and keep pressing him with truth because here's the thing. Here's the thing that's so important to understand. There are people who hold to replacement theology who are not anti-Semites. There are people who hold to replacement theology who love Jesus, who love the Word, and who love Jewish people, but they simply believe that in the plan of God and the unfolding of God's plan of salvation, the church has replaced Israel or superseded Israel, or they hold to what they call fulfillment theology or expansion theology, whatever it is. The bottom line, though, is that it is this wrong theology that has opened the door to a horrific flood of anti-Semitism in church history. It is this wrong theology that opens the door to Jew-hating to this day, and you will not find anyone who is so strongly pro-Palestinian that they are militantly anti-Israel. You won't find someone holding to that who does not also hold to replacement theology.

So the theology does go in very dangerous directions. Hey, Trevor, I appreciate the call, 86634—no, tell you what, I don't need to give the number out, because I'm going to be joined by my guest, Travis Snow, momentarily to talk about his book, The Passover King. Let me encourage you to read my book, Resurrection, check it out, look at the arguments that are made, and then pray about finding a Jewish person that you'd give the book to. I really felt burdened by the Lord to write it, and as I said, we were not able to really draw sufficient attention to it when it came out last year. I thought, okay, great, we'll revisit this year, and then we want to get it translated into Hebrew as well. We feel ultimately distributed in Israel, the Lord will use it, and I believe that the Lord wants to use it to reach followers of the late Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, certainly a significant, a major Jewish leader, a massively influential Jewish leader, but one who was not the Messiah and underscores the one who really is the Messiah of Israel and the Savior of the world.

We'll be right back. 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. How great is our God. Welcome friends to Thirdly Jewish Thursday during this Passover Easter season.

This is Michael Brown. Some months back, I was sent a manuscript to a fascinating book, The Passover King by Travis Snow, founder and president of Voice of Messiah, and it challenges a lot of our traditional ways of looking at the biblical feasts and looking at the end times and connection between Passover and the end of the age and book of Revelation. And I wrote an endorsement for the book, Joel Richards, and said a generally groundbreaking and very important book, a necessary corrective to so many prophecy works available today.

When I heard from Travis a few weeks back, hey, should we talk about this book during Passover? And I said, absolutely, let's do it. So I think you're going to find this to be a really, really interesting interview, and let's get right to it. Travis, thanks so much for joining us here on the line of fire.

Hi, Dr. Brown. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity. Well, glad to have you. So let's do this. Take a few minutes and lay out how many have thought about the feasts and the end times and the significance of that, and then what you challenge, what you want us to rethink based on scripture in your book, The Passover King.

Okay, absolutely. So if we go back to kind of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, really when messianic Jewish theology was in the formative stage, there was this idea that became very popular that the spring feast of Israel, which we know would include Passover, early first fruits, unleavened bread, and then also Shavuot or Pentecost, there was this idea that became very popular that the spring feasts have already been completely fulfilled. And then this led to the belief that only the fall feast will be fulfilled when Jesus actually returns.

So there's been a lot of teaching on how Jesus will come back on the Feast of Trumpets and fulfill Feast of Trumpets and then Day of Atonement and Feast of Tabernacles because most people have kind of relegated the spring feast only to a past fulfillment. Basically what I'm doing in this book is I'm exploring why I think that idea is problematic and I'm just going to read something that Jesus says in Luke 22 when he's at the Last Supper, which was a Passover meal, that kind of informs my thinking on this issue. He's at the Last Supper and he says, I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer, for I say to you, I shall never again eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. So for many years, I looked at that passage and I said, you know, here's Jesus saying that Passover will be fulfilled, not tomorrow when he's crucified, but he says it will actually be fulfilled in the kingdom. And from a first century Jewish perspective, I think it's pretty well understood that the kingdom of God refers to the time when the Messiah comes back and he reigns in victory. So I see there that Jesus is saying there's a future fulfillment of Passover that is eschatological, it's related to the end times, it's related to his return, and so that's kind of the jumping off point for the book, and in the book I'm really just exploring, okay, what did he mean?

What were the passages in Scripture that him and his first century Jewish audience would have been aware of? Where are these passages in Scripture in the prophets that speak of this future exodus, future fulfillment of Passover? So I'm trying to start more with the spring feast, first and foremost, when looking at the return of Yeshua, Jesus, because I think that's actually the way he was looking at it. All right, so what if I say, okay, we know that John the Immerser, John the Baptist in John 1 29 speaks of Messiah and calls him the Lamb of God, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Then we know in 1 Corinthians 5 that Paul says Messiah, our Passover, meaning our Passover Lamb has been sacrificed for us, and we know elsewhere that the time of Yeshua's crucifixion coincides with the slaughter of the lambs.

There's debate about a day either way, but there's certainly a certain level of fulfillment, the significance of the blood and God seeing the blood and passing over us. Are you saying that there's a fulfillment beyond that? Because those things are evident and undeniable in terms of New Testament themes, but are you saying there's a greater fulfillment to Passover beyond that?

And if so, would Scriptures point you in that direction? Sure, I'm really glad you answered that question because I don't, or asked that question, I don't want to be perceived as minimizing what Yeshua has already done and how it relates to Passover. So I definitely believe that he's the Lamb, I definitely believe that that has relevance to Passover and what he's already done, and these are beautiful elements of the Gospel that I think we rightly emphasize, especially when we're sharing the Gospel with the Jewish community and for many years I went to different churches and I would teach on Passover and I would emphasize those elements of him being the Lamb.

But I think it's a both-and situation, I don't think it's either-or. So I think definitely he fulfilled certain elements, but there are other elements to the Passover that I think he has not fulfilled. So these elements we could look at, you know, Passover was when Israel was set free, that's when Moses brought them out of Egypt, it's when he liberated them, it's when God actually judged the powers of darkness during the time of Passover, so in Exodus the Lord says he will execute judgment against the gods of Egypt, which is the principalities and powers. So I think this has started to happen through the cross, that the powers and principalities have been disarmed and this victory is in process, but I also think Jesus was pointing that yes, there is something beyond just his work on the cross when it comes to a future Exodus and a future fulfillment of Passover, and as far as key biblical texts, I cover a number of them in the book, a really big one is Numbers 24, I won't go into so much detail right now, but Numbers 24 talks about this future Exodus and the Messiah coming out of Egypt as this kind of warrior king. Ezekiel 38 to 39, the famous Gog of Magog prophecy, I know this passage has been disputed in Christian circles, but there's a very strong Jewish tradition that has understood that Ezekiel 38 to 39 is using Passover symbolism to describe how the Messiah will defeat the Antichrist, or in that chapter he's called Gog, so there's this Jewish understanding that the Messiah comes to defeat the powers of evil using the same plagues that Moses used against Pharaoh. So I'm kind of just trying to unpack these different passages, also you get into the book of Revelation, and especially within the key Second Coming prophecies in Revelation, there's just so much Passover and Exodus symbolism, especially in Revelation 15 and 16, and I think that's what Jesus was referring to, is this kind of future victorious actions that he will take as the king of Israel that will kind of mimic and mirror what Moses did when he brought Israel out of Egypt. So is there that very specific connection in your view in Exodus 15 where they sing the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb, or should we just read that generically like John 1.17 that the Torah was given by Moses, grace and truth came by Yeshua, or is there more to it in the context of Revelation that, in your view, points back to Passover, and in fact, the plagues in Revelation does that tie in with Passover, so open that up for us.

Yes, absolutely. I think the plagues definitely do kind of riff off of the Passover story, and I won't read the entire passage here in Revelation 15 right now, but one of the things I do in the book is just go through each of these individual plagues and bold judgments, and they are almost exact repetitions of the original plagues from the book of Exodus. And then to your point about the song of Moses, this is what the Israelites were singing after they crossed the Red Sea, and then in Revelation 15, John describes the victory of the saints, and he says this is the song of Moses, the song of the Lamb, so it seems to be that the entire sort of victory of the Messiah is put within this Passover and Exodus framework in Revelation, and then we go back to the Gospels, what Jesus said. So it's hard for me to say, okay, Passover's already been completely fulfilled, it has no deeper relevance, and one of the things I'm also wanting to do in the book is help people understand kind of the practical significance and how all of this should inform our understanding of prophecy, God's plan for Israel, future end-time events, the Gospel, how we look at Jesus, so I think it has a lot of practical implications as well.

Got it. All right, so I do want to unpack this more. We've got you for two segments here, but friends, you'll find this to be a really fascinating book.

How many pages? It's over 350 pages, so I remember going through and saying, wow, there's a lot of interesting arguments here in the book, but when you challenge, you're saying, well, let's look at Scripture, let's look at Scripture, let's look at Scripture. And I know my colleague, Messianic Jewish theologian, Dan Juster, for decades had taught the connection between Passover and the book of Revelation, so some of those things were reminding me of all the arguments that he had raised. But before we get back into the theological, again, friends, the book Travis Snow, The Passover King, you find it to be a really interesting, edifying wreath. Let's just take a minute now before the break and talk about something practical. Okay, so how does this impact me practically? Great, you've made these interesting points. Now what? What do you say to that?

Absolutely. So for me, I think it's all about a vision of Jesus, and there's always this theme in Scripture that God transforms His people as He brings them into this encounter where they can see Him, and they can see His glory in a deeper way. So you look at Isaiah, Isaiah has this vision of the Lord.

You look in John, Jesus connects eternal life and experiencing eternal life to beholding the Messiah. So I think it's really important that we start to behold Jesus in this way, and that yes, we understand Him as the suffering servant, but also as this victorious new Moses, warrior, messianic king who's coming back to rule and reign. And I really do think that Passover is one of the keys to understanding His identity, and I guess you could say having a deeper Christology, as some people might describe it. And so for me personally, the more I've been able to understand Jesus and His return through this lens of Passover, it's deepened my walk with Him, it's deepened my worship of Him, my fear of Him, because once you understand, it's not just gentle Jesus, meek and mild, you know? So there's these other elements to His character, and I think people will find that very practical in their walk with the Lord. Yeah, in fact, the Lamb who was slain in Revelation 5 is the Lion of Judah.

Absolutely. All right, we'll be right back to talk to Travis Snow, the book, The Passover King. 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 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome friends to Thoroughly Jewish Thursday. This is Michael Brown speaking with Travis Snow about his new book, The Passover King. And you know, Travis, as much as I have certain strong views about the end times and Messiah's return, I have a lot of question marks along the way, a lot of blanks that need to be filled in.

So I'm very happy to dialogue with folks that have a wide range of different ways of filling in those blanks as long as we major on the major. So I want to encourage you folks that are listening and watching, don't just read stuff about the end times that reinforces what you already believe. Allow your views to be challenged because these things are yet unfolding and there will be things that become clearer as we get closer. Travis, you have a chapter talking about the modern Middle East in Numbers 24. So where do you get ideas that Numbers 24, this prophecy of Moses, actually interfaces with the modern world?

Sure. So in that chapter in Numbers 24, it's connected to this prophecy that Balaam gives, and there's this kind of repeated language that's used in the Hebrew Bible where the prophets speak about the latter days. And this is a term that Balaam uses there, it's also used by Moses in other places.

It's used in Ezekiel in the context of the Gog and Magog episode. And so there's different approaches to prophecy and some people will read these passages and they'll say everything was just historically fulfilled in the past. So we're just being kind of given a picture of historical events that took place during the time of ancient Israel's monarchy, when they came back from exile, and my position is that the prophets were actually looking further on the horizon when they were using this language the latter days.

Not that there were no applications to past events, but I think that their horizon was fundamentally eschatological. And within that context, you always see the prophets mentioning specific nations. Now they don't use modern-day vernacular, they don't use the modern-day terminology like we know these nations today, but I take more of what's called the end times or eschatological geographical view of all of these nations that are mentioned. So sometimes the name is the same, sometimes it's Egypt, but sometimes they'll use Moab. And I think when they're using these terms for all these nations, I think they're referring to real prophetic events that will take place in these actual nations that had these territorial boundaries in the past, and you see this consistent theme that there are all these Middle Eastern nations that are connected to end times prophecy, and that's another, I guess, practical point that I think these prophecies have a lot to say about potential future events in the Middle East.

All right, so let me ask a follow-up question to that. Of course, Balaam's prophecy, I reference Moses, but of course, Balaam's prophecy ultimately recorded by Moses in the five books of Moses. What about this tendency we've had for years, Travis, where dispensationalists, those who believe in the pre-Trib rapture, were trying to read the headlines and then see how prophecy was unfolding, and then, you know, we've got 10 nations in Europe, well, it must be 10 leading federations of revelation, and everything was unfolding and changing, and I used to tell people, you know, if you keep a prophetic calendar, make sure you do it in pencil, because you're going to have to do a lot of rewriting, and, you know, 1988, 88 reasons why Jesus is coming in 88, which was followed by 89 reasons why he's coming in 89, and I found out recently that I actually wrote a third book as to why he's coming in 90, and then, of course, that was the end of that. So, how do you avoid that pitfall of trying to plug everything into contemporary events? So, on the one hand, if the Bible says, Bacharit ha-Yamim, in the end of days, thus and such will happen, there may have been an anticipation of it being nearer than we know it to be now, but ultimately, it's, yeah, the end, the final events, you know, Isaiah 2, the Messianic Kingdom. So, how do we avoid, on the one hand, just date-setting and trying to make everything relevant, but on the other hand, recognizing that the Bible does speak to the end times, to the end of the age?

What would you say is a biblical balance to that? Yeah, I think it's like every theological issue that we look at, there's always this very fine line, and there's kind of a ditch on both sides of the road, so we could look at the extremes in any area of theology, whether it's different things in the charismatic movement, which causes the pendulum to swing oftentimes into pure cessationism, and I think it's, and there's a lot of things like that in theology, so I think, for me, eschatology is kind of the same way. I want to just go right down the middle, and I don't want to become so jaded by a lot of the sensationalism and date-setting, which I think is a major problem and something that I do try to address in the book, but I don't want to become so jaded by that, that I missed what God could be saying and that I missed the practical implications, and that I missed the fact that, you know, Jesus in the Gospels, he seemed to be really serious about preparing his people for future eschatological events, so I think there has to be that kind of fine line and avoid both extremes and just depending on the Holy Spirit, and then also I would say, I find that the more I actually study the text in depth and exegetically, I find that actually understanding the text more on its own terms actually helps me to avoid a lot of the sensationalism, so I think it's an invitation to actually understand prophecy more deeply, not to ignore the future implications of prophecy.

That's my approach to it. Got it, got it, because I know when I swung away from dispensationalism decades ago that I just, I didn't study, you know, the Gog-Magog prophecies in as much depth and some of these, you know, I keep reading through the scriptures, but I thought, you know, I had it all figured out in detail and I kind of stepped back, and then some years ago I thought, well, there is information that's there, though just because I swung to one extreme doesn't mean that I have to, not so much become jaded, although that is a genuine issue that can come up, but I had to say, okay, there is something here, this text is speaking of future events, how much does God want us to know? And then real short, because we've only got, oh, not even three minutes, Deuteronomy 33, you don't hear a lot of teaching and preaching about that, but you believe that that ties in with the Messiah and the end times as well? Yes, Deuteronomy 33 is a beautiful prophecy, I think it deserves a lot more attention.

Basically I would just say this, I think what Moses is doing at the end of the Torah, I think he's wrapping up this vision of Messianic redemption that he started in Genesis 3.15 with this whole seed of the serpent and then the Messiah coming and having victory, so I think Deuteronomy 33 is the culmination of the Torah's narrative of Messianic redemption, and it's really beautiful, but what Moses does there, what it seems like he does, and there are other scholars who believe this as well, is he uses Israel's experience of the Exodus as kind of a template, kind of a historical backdrop for what will happen when the Messiah returns and when ultimately the Messiah restores the earth in the Messianic age. So it's a beautiful prophecy that I think deserves a lot more attention. Yeah, so, friends, it's all in the book The Passover King by Travis Snow, and then ultimately the Second Coming, we're normally looking at that in terms of the trumpet blast, Feast of Trumpets, then followed by Israel's national cleansing, Yom Kippur Day of Atonement, followed by Sukkot, the harvest where all the nations come streaming to Jerusalem, do you still see those feasts unfold in that same way? So there's still Passover fulfillment to come, but these other feasts unfold in that same way.

Is that your view? It's similar. I do believe all of the feasts have a future prophetic fulfillment. I don't get too deep into date-setting or anything like that, but I believe that all of the feasts will have a future fulfillment, so I definitely believe that Feast of Trumpets and Day of Atonement and Sukkot factor in, but I think, for me, I want to start back with the spring feasts, and I see more of a natural progression moving from the spring to the fall feasts, so I think all of them have a future fulfillment.

Give me the short synopsis of how they unfold, the bird's-eye view. Okay, so I think Passover is the time of deliverance and redemption when Jesus comes back. It's in the spring, it's the time of new life and new beginnings. I think then that kind of folds into what we would know of as Sukkot, which is, or Pentecost, I'm sorry, I'm off there, Shavuot, Feast of Weeks, which is a harvest festival, so then the nations coming in and being harvested and the spirit being poured out, and then I think as you go along into the fall feast, you get this, a lot of times you get this trumpet language, even in the Book of Exodus, when Israel was being called to Mount Sinai, so I think the Feast of Trumpets in the kingdom might possibly have more to do with the nations actually being called up to Jerusalem, to the Holy Mountain in Mount Zion, and then Day of Atonement, kind of the cleansing of the land and preparing space for God's manifest presence to dwell, and then I think Sukkot would be kind of the culmination, the big celebration where all the nations are there as well, so that's kind of how I lay it out, and I cover that in chapter 15 as well in a little more detail.

Got it. So friends, a lot to get you thinking, and just the richness of the word that so many of the things we're holding to can simultaneously be true, and then we understand it as they unfold. So the book, Travis Snow, The Passover at King, exploring the prophetic connection between Passover, the end times, and the return of Jesus, and friends, let's all agree on this, he is the Passover King, and our focus needs to be first and foremost on him. Hey, thanks for writing the book and joining us on the broadcast, I appreciate it. Yes, thanks a lot, Dr. Brown, I really appreciate everything you do.

You bet. God bless you, my brother. God bless you, God bless you. God bless you.