Does Israel Deserve God's Blessing?

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On our Thursday broadcast. Okay, we will talk about some news items relating to Israel. There has been recent war between Israel and Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist organizations. Right now it has been contained. Right now there is truce. There's not been a high loss of life. May it be so that it continues and may grace be extended to victims on the ground.

May people look up to God as their one and only hope in the midst of this. I recently received an email from dear friends in Israel, husband and wife who have lived in the land for decades. They have spent most of their lives in the land. I imagine they're my age or a little bit older and they've spent two-thirds or more of their lives living in Israel. Raised their kids in Israel. Their kids have fought in Israeli military.

These are lovers of Yeshua and lovers of Israel. And in the email they were sharing the great grief that they have over their nation. They were sharing how in many ways things are so much worse within Israel.

That there's more corruption in the government than they've ever seen. And they just went through a list of everything that's wrong within the nation of Israel. Again as lovers of Israel who live in the land, not critics, not anti-zionists, but those who believe that God brought the Jewish people back to the land. Those who believe that God will bring the Jewish people back to himself through Yeshua. Those who believe that Israel is falsely accused and maligned in the news all the time. They just shared the depth of burden and concern they have for the nation. And there are Christians who will say, rightly so, Israel does not deserve God's blessing.

Look, if we lived in Israel today, let's say that we are believers now living in Israel instead of living in America, those of us who live in America. So in America we are grieved over many of the government policies. We are grieved over much of the direction of the nation. We are grieved over the immorality. We are grieved over the sexual perversion and on and on.

We are grieved over the violence. Well now put us in Israel, alright? Put us in the land of Israel. Now there is much to appreciate in Israel. There are massive things to appreciate in Israel, especially in contrast with surrounding nations. Israel is like an oasis in many, many ways. And Israel tries in many ways to be fair and to be just in the midst of a very volatile, difficult situation.

No doubt about it. But how would we feel, say, about gay activism in Israel? We'd be grieved over it just like we are here in America. How would we feel about abortion in Israel?

We'd be grieved as we are here in America, except we would not find a strong pro-life movement in Israel the way we have it in America. That would be much more in the minority. What about sexual immorality in general? What about porn? What about...you just go down the list of things. What about drug use? What about this?

What about that? And you'd find the same problems that you see in America in many ways in Israel. One of my colleagues lives in Tel Aviv, belongs to a local gym there, and told me half-jokingly that he thinks he's the only straight guy working out in the gym there.

That it's filled with gay men. Israel has come to prominence as a manufacturer of gay porn. Yeah, Israel. If you are a female soldier in the IDF, you can get free abortions.

If you get pregnant while you're in the IDF, you can just get a government-sponsored abortion if that happens to you, and that's your choice. I mean, it goes on. I remember, certainly within the last ten years, maybe five years back, maybe a little longer, that a major survey was done in a gay publication as to which cities in the world were the most gay friendly.

All right? And they either had the top 10 or 20, whatever it was. Number one, way off the charts. I mean, number two, three, four, they were close, but number one, way off the charts was Tel Aviv. It was Tel Aviv. So I say all that to say that I do not believe that Israel today deserves the blessings of God. It's not a matter of, under Sinai law, God saying, I will bless you if you obey, and I will curse you if you disobey, and because Israel is so obedient, therefore God is blessing. Now, there are religious Jews, a growing number, a rapidly growing number of religious Jews, ultra religious Jews in Israel, who abhor much of what we abhor, who have very similar moral values to our moral values. Of course, they abhor Jesus. The Jesus they know is not the Jesus of the New Testament. They abhor the Jesus they know, and the Jesus of Church history, and the Jesus falsely associated with leaders in the Holocaust. They abhor that Jesus. It's the only Jesus they know, so we have to reach them with the message of who Yeshua really is. But of course, they would hotly and strongly oppose someone like me, but even within their communities, with all their devotion, they have problems like everybody else has. They have issues going on in secret like everybody else has. Thankfully, in many ways, they are trying to uphold Torah, and do what is right, and honor the Sabbath, and honor family laws, and things like that that they understand are important to the Lord.

I recognize that, but even there, even if they're all righteous, it's it's still, what, 10-15 percent of the nation, and as I said, among them, like every other religious group, there's hypocrisy, and sin, and corruption as well. Israel needs the Lord. Israel needs Jesus. You know, this reminds me of years ago, my friend, Rabbi Shmuley Bateach, before he was my friend, before we knew each other, came into a lot of prominence with his friendship with Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson reached out to him, he became a counselor to him, and Rabbi Bateach had been known before that, but this is what really catapulted him to be known among the stars, and all these other people, and the rich and the famous, etc. And you know what he told Michael Jackson, who had some Jehovah's Witness background, as I understand it? Shmuley, the rabbi, told Michael Jackson, and he said this publicly, Michael, you need Jesus.

You need Jesus. Well, now I am saying something that Rabbi Bateach would not say, Israel needs Yeshua. Israel needs to turn to God and repentance. You say, well then, Mike, why do you support Israel? Why do you stand with Israel? Why do you believe that God brought Israel back to the land? After all, God said in passages like Deuteronomy 30, if you will repent, then I will bring you back.

After I scatter you, I will bring you back. Obviously, there's not been national repentance. Israel was founded largely by secular people, most the religious leaders that Jewish leaders in the world opposed Zionism in its early stages, and many of the views changed post Holocaust and with the establishment of Israel, and many more were willing to see this as a beginning of a messianic restoration, but many other religious Jews to this day opposed the modern state of Israel. So, why do I stand with Christian Zionists as a messianic Jew and say I believe that God brought them back to the land?

Because of the Word. Because of the Word and because of grace. Can I ask you a question as a Christian? Do you live by grace every day?

Do you get what you deserve every day? When you stand before God on that great day, will you say, Lord, give me what I deserve or I come to you through the blood of Jesus, right? So, we live by grace. If the Church of America got what it deserved, we'd be smoked.

We'd be out of here. Alright, so, what do I believe what I believe? Well, the Scriptures, plainly. Most plainly, in passages like Ezekiel 36, where God brought the Jewish people back from Babylon, but there's much of that chapter that was never fulfilled. Many of the promises that God gave to Israel in exile about coming back to the land, some of what was promised was fulfilled, but most of it is still to be fulfilled, alright? And God said there, I'm not doing this for your sake, because you're unclean.

I'm doing this for my name's sake, because my name is being defiled, with you being in exile that makes me, the God of Israel, look bad. This is what he's saying in the Scriptures. The Lord's temple, Yahweh's temple in Jerusalem, destroyed. Yahweh's people scattered in the lands of the other gods, the pagan gods. It made it look like those gods had power and he said, I'm gonna tell you in advance what I'm gonna do. You have this especially in Isaiah 40 through 48. I'm gonna tell you in advance what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna bring you back to the land.

I'm gonna establish you there. And he says in Isaiah 52, his name is continually blaspheme because they're in exile, Ezekiel 36. He's doing it because of the holiness of his name. So this is because of God's sovereign purposes and his end-time vision to bring Israel back and to bring the Messiah back and to bring the nations into salvation. This is part of the end-time plan of God, but Israel exists by grace. I stand with Israel for that reason.

It doesn't mean I stand against others, but I stand with Israel because I recognize God has brought them back and I recognize it's Satan who wants to wipe the Jewish people out. It's Satan who wants to keep Jerusalem out of Jewish hands. It's Satan who wants to keep Jewish people away from Yeshua. It's Satan who does not want the Jewish people to welcome Yeshua back, to establish his kingdom on the earth, and to once and for all destroy the work of Satan. He doesn't want that to happen, so I stand with Israel today because God brought the Jewish people back. I stand with Israel today because I see it's Satan who wants to wipe them out, and I stand with Israel today because of the good that it does and to the extent it seeks to live harmoniously with its neighbors. At the same time as a friend of Israel, I call the Jewish people to repent and turn to God. At the same time as a friend of Israel, if Israel does wrong, I call it out and say this is not just, this is not right.

That's what real friends should do. All right, your calls 866-348-7884. That is the number to call any Jewish-related question of any kind. Call my zero. It's the Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the line of fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Yes, give thanks to the Lord for he is good.

His loving kindness is forever. Michael Brown, welcome to the broadcast 866-348-7884. Again, any Jewish-related question of any kind is kosher on our Thursday broadcast. All right, if we only bring one bus to Israel, that's what we've done on previous trips. We had a second bus, we would have had a couple of buses, and that was our cutoff limit with the trip that we had to cancel due to COVID a couple years back. But May 23, May 2023, if we only take one bus, which is the initial plan, we've only got, oh 20 something seats left, you know, we announced it, immediately got people signing up, so we don't know if we're gonna take a second bus yet, all right. But if you're thinking of going, wanting to go, check it out now.

AskDrBrown.org. You'll just see it right on our homepage after a few seconds. Check it out, tell your family, tell your friends. Pastors, maybe you've really wanted to bring a few people to Israel, but haven't been able to organize the tour, you don't have enough people, so come with five, ten of your people joining together, it'll be an incredible time. But if you're planning on signing up, do it now, because if we get just a little over one bus, then we're gonna cut it off there.

If we get a lot more, then we'll consider a second. So just, just letting you know, so that you can plan accordingly. Again, that's at the website AskDrBrown.org. All right, just some news to share with you, and this is over on the Israel Chayyum website, Chayyum meaning today in Hebrew. World Cup 2022 booking site replaces Israel with occupied Palestinian territories. Yeah, so this is a site you're gonna go to the World Cup, one of the big sporting events in, when it happens, it's not every year, it's a massive worldwide sporting event.

World Cup 2022, one of the sites where you can book. Israel's, Israelis were allowed to travel to Qatar to attend football masses from November, so soccer, from November 21st to December 18th 2022, despite Doha not having diplomatic ties with the Jewish state. However, however, if you wanted to reserve your tickets for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, then you didn't find Israel on the list of countries, but you're allowed to select occupied Palestinian territories as their location instead. That's not a surprise, it's not a surprise at all in the Muslim world that that's the case, but with the Abraham Accords, with relationships opening up more, with Israel and the surrounding nations, with some unprecedented things taking place, it still is a reminder that for many Israel does not have the right to exist.

You have to understand, friends, just go through a little history here. When Israel became a nation, again in 1948, it considers itself the state of Israel because not all of the Jewish people there, then it would ultimately be the country, the nation of Israel, but considers itself the state of Israel right now, but not Israel. But when it was announced in 1947 and then officially declared in 1948, that brought all-out war by the surrounding Muslim nations. In other words, it was not a matter of, okay, you can have this part of the land, but not the rest. You can have this part of the Jerusalem, but not the old city. You can have this part of the nation here, but not these other parts.

No, no, no. It was, you can have none of it. In other words, as a Jew living there in the land, now under the control of the British, say in 1940, okay, you can be there and you may be working side-by-side with Muslims, Christians, and other groups and things like that, but you don't own this land in a national way. You can be a Jewish landowner within the land. You're in the minority, but you could be a Jewish land owner within the land. You can even have Muslim Arabs working your farm, but you do not have the right to own this land.

This is your nation. No, no, no. Absolutely not.

Absolutely, under no circumstances. Now remember, before this moment, right, Jews and Arabs, Muslim Arabs, and Christian Arabs as well, were living side-by-side in the land. Yes, there were conflicts. There was what you would call an intifada in the 1930s under Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.

He was a real provocateur and became a friend of Hitler, and there were many in the Muslim world who were cheering Hitler on and wanting him to finish the job of destroying the Jew. So tremendous anti-semitism existing in the radical Muslim world. So these things were there, the sentiments were there, but they were still, for the most part, living peacefully side-by-side, right? Now that this was going to become an official Jewish state, that's when all hell broke loose. You cannot be here.

You must leave. So when the war broke out, again, the surrounding Arab nations attacked Israel. Yes, you had small Israeli groups that were engaging in acts of violence against the British, against Muslims. You did have that going on, but the war broke out with the surrounding nations declaring war on Israel. Israel's leadership, the senior leadership, was saying let us live in peace side-by-side. The senior Arab leadership was saying we're gonna drive you into the sea. So yes, in the midst of war atrocities were committed on all sides. In the midst of war things happen that you regret.

That happens on all sides. But the idea that this was a genocide of the Palestinians, there was not even such a thing as the Palestinians at that point. The Palestine Post was the Jewish publication, now known as the Jerusalem Post. The Palestinian Orchestra was the Jewish Orchestra, all right? There was no national identity of the land of Palestine for the Muslims there that had never been. It was part of Greater Syria and related to other parts of Jordan, Egypt, and things like that.

Okay, so this is history. It's really hard to deny much of this as it unfolds. About 200,000 of the local Arab population ends up staying, and that has grown to all over a million and a half, probably is approaching 2 million today. And they have rights as Israeli citizens, they vote, they're in the Parliament, they have parties in the Parliament, they have a Supreme Court justice, they work in every area of the society. Now, many are still hostile to Israel and feel that there's not fair treatment for others, etc.

But in point of fact, they stay, they thrive. The others, maybe 600,000 left, and you say, well Israel drove them out. Well, there was a war, so some did get driven out for sure. But many left because they were told by the Arab leaders that can and can't distinguish between a Jew and an Arab.

Get out, we'll drive them into the sea, and then you come back to your homes. Well, that never happened, hence the refugee crisis. And remember, if the war had not started, then Israel would not have driven these people out of their villages and homes.

And again, much of it was just conflict of war, much of it was people fleeing on the road. At the same time, 800,000 Jews were driven out from the surrounding Muslim nations where they lived. When Israel became a state, they were forcibly driven out. Many of them now took refuge in Israel. The Arabs, who left or were driven out, were not given refuge in the surrounding Muslim Arab nations, which is how we got the quote refugee crisis that continues now, multi-generational. The only one like this in the world. You have refugees who get resettled and relocated, and that's it.

No, not this time. These are permanent refugees, and it's a concerted way to try to make Israel bad and put Israel under pressure. When you hear the saying, from the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free, it's a well-known saying that's chanted, that's recited.

Some of us even called out, Van Jonesman used to be on CNN for saying that or retweeting that. What you're saying is, Israel does not have the right to exist. From the river, meaning the Euphrates River, in the east to the sea, meaning the Mediterranean Sea in the west, so where Israel is between that, from the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free. It means get rid of the Jewish state. That's what it means. It doesn't mean even restrict to pre-1967 borders when Israel expanded its territory in the Six-Day War. It doesn't mean that. It doesn't mean go back to 1948 borders.

No, no, no. That saying means no more Israel as a nation. And what's interesting, as you have negotiations and things like that, say with with Palestinian Authority and things like that, because Israel's not negotiating with Hamas, whatever would be controlled by Palestinian Authority would be free of Jews. So you have a couple million Arabs living right within Israel as part of Israel proper, they call themselves Palestinians, right within, under the Israeli government and under Israeli law.

No problem. You have Jews living under the Palestinian Authority. No, no, no. Whatever will be official Palestinian territory will be unified, to use the terrible German phrase, free of Jews. So that's, that's the debate.

It is existential about the existence of Israel, not simply a matter of borders and disputes. Okay, we come back. I will go straight to the phones, catch up on some more news.

Maybe we'll open up the Hebrew language as well. 866-348-784. This number to call with your Jewish related questions.

And we will be right back as Don Cooper and our friends from Skillet lead us into the break. It's the Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the Line of Fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome friends to thoroughly Jewish Thursday on the Line of Fire. Michael Brown, thank you for taking time out of your busy day to listen to the broadcast and to join in.

You've got a Jewish related question 866-34-TRUTH is the number to call. About 43 minutes from now we will be coming back onto our YouTube channel. Ask Dr. Brown. Ask Dr. Brown. Those of you who are watching live on YouTube, you can wave. Oh, in fact, make sure you click. I always forget to tell folks. Make sure you click thumbs up on that on that YouTube video or like.

It just helps spread it to more. Take a second and do it if you're watching on YouTube. But we'll be back at 4.15 Eastern Time. So 15 minutes after this broadcast ends we'll be back 4.15 Eastern Time with our weekly Q&A chat.

We we missed it a couple of weeks. Eager to be back with you. So that's a great time for you to post questions.

Tell your friends they can join in there if you're unable to call. It's a great, great, a great time. A great time to post your questions. So can't wait to be with you there. But right now we're here so let's go to the phones. We'll start with Michael in Lake Stevens, Washington. Welcome to the line of fire.

Thank you Dr. Brown. My question is, is there any historical scholarly documentation on how the Jews after 70 AD were transported captive from Judea to Germany? If that makes sense. I know the mouthful. Yeah, from Judea to Germany. Right, so.

Great. Right, so what you want to read for that is any of the major histories of Israel. There are quite a few. If you if you just get online and search, you know, anywhere you buy your books for a history of Israel, the major histories will do their best to trace these things.

Some are just for biblical history, some are for the modern history of Israel, but the comprehensive ones, they're quite a few that have been written over the years. But here's the challenge, all right. Exactly how you got from point A to point B. Like sometimes, or let's say from A to Z. In some cases, Michael, you can clearly say, here's how we got from A to J, and then we're a little fuzzy, and now we can see clearly how we got from P to Z.

But that bridge is not as clear. So the best we can tell, just the larger question, is that as Jewish people were scattered around the world and then emigrate to other countries, sometimes it's a period of time you're in another country, then you get kicked out there because you don't conform to the Muslim or Christian views, or it's just difficult, you move on somewhere else, you know, groups do emigrate, these things happen, you know, you can you can go around the world and you can meet, say, people from the Philippines, right, you know, and they they serve in different countries and then they get planted there. So at a certain point, these Jews who were making their way through Europe got to a fairly small number. This is the background to Ashkenazi Jews, as best as we can tell. They got to a fairly small number, so it was it was not hundreds of thousands, but more like thousands. And then as they began to intermarry with Europeans, so Caucasian Europeans who converted to Judaism and became part of the Jewish people, then those are the ones ultimately who made their way to Germany and some of these other European countries.

So it's kind of like you get like a bottleneck and and then it opens up again. And the other thing that you can trace interestingly is some DNA studies that are done and they'll look at at some of these as well. So here's what I'll do Michael, during the break because I want to mention a couple of DNA ones that I want to check for it for the best titles, during the break I'm gonna pull some of these up and then after the break if you keep listening I'll mention a couple of titles that are recommended that have kind of traced these things via DNA studies as well, okay? Alright, yes, so so what I'm gonna do that that's the large answer of how it happened and even the origins of the Ashkenazi Jews, the the myth that Ashkenazi Jews are primarily converts of the Khazar kingdom is just a myth that should be completely dismissed and has been dismissed by most scholars. But I did read as I was setting some of these issues not just the not just the history in terms of historical records, archaeological records, literary records and things like that, but tying in the DNA that was very very interesting and it was a way to trace geographical patterns of migration and things like that. I do reference some of this if you have the new edition of our hands are stained with blood the new edition that came out in 2019 I do reference some of these issues that I do put those notes in there but I'll I'll tell you some of the other things that I recommend during the break all right now that I know you're a specific question I'll get the reference during the break and then come back on the air all right um let's go to Texas Josiah you are on the line of fire hey dr. Michael Brown how are you doing great thanks now that's awesome to hear so I have a question I was curious about early fish converts of the faith and what their views concerning baptismal regenerate particularly and because they kind of listen to a lot of like it's very recent what's about people talk the entire church and I wanted what early Jewish converts thought about right so we don't have a lot of writings of Jewish believers in Yeshua outside of the New Testament documents in those immediate centuries you know most of the writings we have from those that become known as the church fathers they were Gentile Christians and they would refer to other Jewish believers and things like that so when you just look at the New Testament itself you can have the debate does it teach baptismal regeneration or not based on the New Testament documents written by these Jewish believers themselves but they answer the question and step outside the New Testament and even outside the church and to ask what did the Jewish world believe about baptism so we understand that ritual immersion was taught in the Torah right that that priests would have to wash themselves before going in to minister in the temple that if you became ritually unclean you accidentally touched a dead animal now you're ritually unclean you have to stay out of the camp for the night and then you you wash and you use these ritual waters for cleansing so ritual cleansing was already instituted in the Torah and then it became much much more widespread you could have communities say like it come on as best as we understand that that there would be regular immersion and water for purification so this would be on a regular basis or before the Sabbath or daily for ritual purification and as as folks that come to Israel with us know or have been to Israel on their own if if you go before where the temple used to stand you'll see these numerous baptismal pools you'll see steps going down and then what would be the the pool of water and then steps going up because you would you would immerse before going into the temple etc so this was widely practiced as a right of purification and as a right of repentance this is why John the immerser is preaching repentance and it is followed by water baptism or immersion in water so was there a concept of baptismal generation in Judaism at that time certainly not there was a concept of repentance of forgiveness of cleansing of renewal but not regeneration so if that was taught it would have been something new that the first followers of Jesus were teaching it would not have been something coming from the Jewish culture I do not believe the New Testament teaches it either but I do believe the New Testament emphasizes the importance of baptism in a way beyond how many of our churches do today so I don't accept baptismal regeneration but I believe we need to restore the importance of baptism as as as essential right following salvation the other thing that Judaism would not have been familiar with would have been immersing babies this was an active purification and repentance for a believer for a for an adult as opposed to for a baby so the concepts of infant baptism the concept of baptism regeneration would not have been known in the ancient Jewish world these would have been innovations and I simply do not see those innovations taught in the New Testament may I ask you a question about that sure so this is that fascinating to me so why do you think so you're talking about a nursing babies and you look at acts but this sign will be for you and your people would that have included it's that consider