Revisiting the Noahide Laws

We're going to revisit the subject of the Noahide laws today. Are they really so dangerous? Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. You know, conspiracy theories die hard. It's a fact.

And when you refute a conspiracy theory, that proves the conspiracy theory is true and you're trying to hide and cover up and all that. Well, we'll talk about that today on Thoroughly Jewish Thursday. Welcome to the broadcast, Michael Brown. Delighted to be with you today. Here's the number to call, 866-34-TRUTH, 866-34-87, 884 any Jewish-related question of any kind whatsoever. Glad to take your call. You can differ with me on a point.

Glad to speak with you. And in particular, if you believe I'm wrong on the Noahide laws, then by all means call in and share your thoughts with me, 866-34-TRUTH. The reason I'm bringing this up again today is threefold. First, I was proofreading the manuscript from my book, Christian Anti-Semitism, Confronting the Lies in Today's Church, which originally was going to be published in October, but we moved it with the publisher to February because of the republishing, the new edition of my Revolution book that came out this month, October.

So we pushed that to February. Reading through it again, I have a whole chapter on the Noahide laws, so that brought it freshly to mind. Then I noticed a few comments on YouTube to videos where I was rebutting that or dialoguing with someone that had a different view.

And again, I'm being accused of being a liar and this and that and covering up and hiding things, etc. And then I saw the news that Adam Green's YouTube channel, which was a bigger YouTube channel than mine in terms of subscribers, but is it no more news? That he got banned from YouTube. Now, I was on his show. It was very cordial.

We have categorically different views about this subject, but it was very cordial. I don't like the fact that folks get banned from YouTube. I don't agree with certain things that he posted, but it's a dangerous precedent. Unless there are other things that were posted, I don't know about, but when I knew of him, I don't like the fact that it happened.

I don't like that it happened with others that I differed even more strongly with, but in any case, that's what brought it to mind recently. So you say, well, what are the Noahide laws actually? What are they? So here, let's just go to kind of a neutral site. Let's go to Britannica.com. And Britannica.com says this, Noahide law is also called Noachian laws.

You don't hear that much. A Jewish Talmudic designation for seven biblical laws given to Adam and to Noah before the revelation to Moses at Mount Sinai and consequently binding on all mankind. So according to rabbinic tradition, God gave these laws to Adam and Noah, and they are binding on all humanity. So for a Gentile to be righteous in God's sight, they just need to keep these, where a Jew needs to keep the 613 commandments of the Torah. So beginning with Genesis 2.16, the Babylonian Talmud listed the first six commandments as prohibitions against idolatry, blasphemy, murder, adultery, and robbery. And the positive command to establish courts of justice with all that this implies. After the flood, a seventh commandment given to Noah forbade the eating of flesh cut from a living animal. Okay, that's what Britannica states, and that's the standard explanation. That if you'll talk to a religious Jew, let's say you're a Gentile, and you say, listen, I want to be righteous in God's sight, do I need to convert to Judaism?

The rabbi would say no, you just need to live by the seven laws of Noah, don't worship idols, don't blaspheme, don't murder, don't commit adultery, you know, just basic laws, don't steal, establish courts of justice, don't eat the flesh of a living animal, and live by that, and you'll be righteous in God's sight, and that will be just as good as a Jew living by the 613 commandments. You say, well, what's the big deal with that? Well, let's look at some websites and some of the headlines.

How about this one? Look at this headline. The Noahide Laws and Planned Guillotine Genocide of All Christians and Non-Jews Worldwide.

If you're looking, you've got a blood dripping on this website. The Jewish Plan to Force Christians to Janai Jesus Christ or Die. The Noahide Laws and Planned Genocide of Christians.

Okay, how about this website? It is a Beware of the Noahide Laws website. Click here to watch the movie for this article, Beware of the Noahide Laws, and then it tells you everything that is going to happen.

Oh, my. Here's another website, Noahide News, and this one says the Goiam Evangelicals, so the Gentile Evangelicals seek to be raped on Yom Kippur, Day of Atonement, and Palestinian Noahide Enforcement? What in the world is that about? I mean, does that sound crazy or what? You say, well, nobody believes this.

All people believe this stuff. So I referenced my book, Christian Anti-Semitism. Those watching, just put it up online for you. Confronting the Lies in Today's Church, coming out in February. Proofing it was very intense to be reminded of what's happening in the world around us, to be reminded of what's happening in the church today. My previous book, Our Hands Are Stained with Blood, which came out in 1992, but we issued a new edition of last year, after 27 years of being continuously in print.

That goes through history and touches some on contemporary issues. The new book is just focused on contemporary issues, and it's shocking to see what's happening in the church, what people are actually believing. You say, well, what's the problem?

What's the big issue? This is what's being taught, that under Jewish teaching, Christians are idol worshippers, either because of their view that God is a trinity, or in particular their view that Jesus is deity, that that makes them idol worshippers, and under the Noahide laws, the penalty for idolatry is beheading, is death penalty, and that nation after nation, including America, and then the Vatican and others, they're signing up, oh yeah, we agree with the Noahide laws, we think this is good for all humanity, and then what's going to happen is, the Jews are going to turn around and say, aha, all Christians have to be beheaded. Now, the scenario is complete nonsense, complete and entire nonsense, and I stand by my comments that there's a better chance of Santa Claus coming down through your chimney than this happening. One reason is that the death penalty only exists, this is entirely theoretical, because it's not Jewish control of the world, and the only time that there would be Jewish control of the world is if in fact there's a Jewish Messiah who sets up his kingdom in the world, in which case if you're a Jew and you don't observe the Sabbath, it's the death penalty. In other words, this is a theoretical age that's being spoken of, and there is no Jewish control over the world that would then enforce this. There's going to be Jewish control in America, and all Christians say, okay, go ahead and behead me, start with me.

I mean, the thought of it is so utterly, completely ridiculous and absurd. Not only so, the majority Jewish teaching says that Gentile Christians are not guilty of idolatry and worship in the Trinity. They would say I am, as a Jew, but that Gentile Christians are not, so it's not even relevant. But when I put the truth out, just the truth, and I've talked to rabbis about this, where are they getting this from? This is crazy. I talked to one of the leading Noahide Law supporters. He's like, where are they getting this from?

It's crazy. I mean, they're shocked to hear this, but when I speak the truth, when I get the truth out, I put it out there, these are the kind of comments we get, and I quote these in Christian anti-Semitism. I could have had page after page after page, but here's some of what I get accused of.

Wow, Dr. Brown, you're an absolute liar. You claim the Noahide Laws are related to Scripture, Acts 15. Some believe that some of this teaching existed in the days of the apostles, and it's referenced in Acts 15. You claim the Noahide Laws are related to Scripture.

I always knew something was wrong about you. You always seemed proud of your intellectual knowledge, calling yourself doctor, but you also lacked zeal, passion. You have to work on that zeal, passion, folks. We worship God through Lord Jesus Christ spiritually, not by knowledge.

He's God of spirit. We keep faith in Lord Jesus Christ throughout faith and walk with Jesus through his Holy Spirit. Why are you deceiving Christians? What is your true agenda? The true agenda is to get Christians undeceived. The true agenda is to get them to stop believing this nonsense by speaking the truth. Oh, but what I do, and I give facts, oh, I'm deceiving them. Oh, oh, look at this.

It gets worse. Dr. Brown, why would you lie and deliberately deceive Christians? You've explaining to do to Christians, how can you lie to bodies of Lord Jesus Christ?

How about this one? If you are such a Christian, why do you support the Noahide Laws? You are not a Christian. You are a Talmudic Jew, just like any Pharisee that Jesus rebuked. Wolf in sheep's clothing. I feel so bad for the people that believe this nonsense. I feel so bad for the people who are so deceived that they can look at someone who's been preaching Jesus to the Jewish community for almost 50 years and say, you're not a father of Jesus. You're a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Why? Because they tell the truth about the Noahide Laws. You say, why do you preach them? I don't preach them. I preach Jesus.

I preach Yeshua. I don't support the Noahide Laws. I don't preach the Noahide Laws. But in point of fact, every believer lives by the Noahide Laws. If you are a true follower of Jesus, then you practice those and many other things. You don't commit idolatry, and you don't blaspheme, and you don't commit adultery, and you don't steal. And you believe in establishing courts of justice. And you don't eat the flesh of a living God.

I mentioned six out of seven, right? We keep these things. Of course we do. But I don't preach that. I don't go to the Gentile world, to Mission Field, and preach that. I preach Jesus. I preach justification by faith and living a life of holiness by sanctification.

Oh, here's some more. Jew worshiping Dr. Brown. Dr. Brown is an ignorant man and has not enough information to defend his position. Stop worshiping Jews. He's a foolish man. So the more facts, the more information we give, the more foolish it makes us.

How about this? To me, the Lord rebuke you, Satan. Hey, I'm against Satan, and he knows it. So you say that all you want, but those words just come back to haunt you. Don't touch me. I just feel bad for people that are that ignorant, that deceived, that passionate, that they can actually post this as here.

Maybe one or two more. You are full of it, promoting Noahide laws. Why not tell the Christians they're about to be beheaded for believing in Jesus? Tell your fellow Jews to love one another. You're a Zionist in sheep's clothing. Over five million Palestinians have been murdered since 1948. Tell the people about the old Yiddon plan.

Tell America what's going to happen. Boy, it'd take a while to unpack the deception that, first, I don't promote the Noahide laws. I tell the truth about the Noahide laws. Second, Jews are not going to be beheading Christians around the world for believing in Jesus. You know who's beheading Christians for believing in Jesus right now? Muslims. Muslims. And if there's going to be a future beheading all around the world that's going to be the Antichrist, who's going to set himself up as God. And therefore it's idolatrous even to think of him in that position. Yeah.

I mean, I go, I got a bunch more of these. It's sad. It's really sad when there's that level of ignorance. And it's scary when you present the truth and people think you're trying to cover things up. That's what's scary. And some of these people are posting claims to be followers of Jesus. That's what I wonder about.

How could you know the Lord and be a serious student of scripture and believe these kind of lies? That concerns me. Anyway, we'll be right back. 866-34-TRUTH with your calls. Hey, you know, it may happen on our next trip to Israel. You can still join us. There's still seats available because we had to reschedule twice because of COVID.

So end of February, beginning of March, roughly like first nine days of March or so, end of February into that. Going to Israel again, God willing. We're trusting everything's going to be cleared up. But Joshua, you just heard singing beautifully, how great is our God in Hebrew. Maybe he'll be able to join us one night and lead us in worship. We've done that before in Israel. So go to our website, askdr.brown.org. You'll see it right on the whole page. Sign up for our tour of a lifetime, incredible time in Israel.

You'll get all the info there. Alright, 866-34-TRUTH. Let's go to Jonathan in Jackson, Mississippi. Welcome to the line of fire. Shalom, Dr. Brown. Shalom. I've seen you on a YouTube video talking with who I think is the main proponent of this Noahide laws thing, debating with them, Stephen and Yana Ben-Nun.

And I was just wondering if you could share your opinions of them in Israeli News Live and your discussion with them on this subject. Yes, so I didn't know them before this controversy came out. Stephen is a Jewish believer and didn't know Stephen or his wife before this. And what happened candidly, Jonathan, was that I started getting calls and people asking me, it's kind of out of the blue last year, about the Noahide laws and is it true that Christians are going to be beheaded. And I thought, what are you talking about? I mean, it was so completely absurd and off the wall and unrelated to reality or any possible scenario of reality that I responded candidly. I was not trying to insult anyone that was talking about it.

I never had heard this stuff. Then I found out different places it was coming from and different folks with some good sized YouTube channels that were talking about it, Adam Green being one of them and then Stephen and Yana Ben-Nun. So we interacted.

Stephen was happy to interact with me or have me on his broadcast, so came on and we were candid with each other. We're obviously all believers in Yeshua. We have a lot in common, but it's hard for me to understand why they believe these things are possible. In their view, having worked within the ultra-orthodox Jewish community and they know the sentiments of ultra-orthodox Jews and they see how Gentiles or Christians can be often scorned and looked at negatively. In their mind, this is a real potential scenario.

In my mind, like I said, it's more likely that Santa Claus will come through the chimney. Beyond that, in terms of other things they teach, I haven't followed them, I can't say. So I got to know them just as fellow believers on the air and interacting, but we've not been in steady contact after that. As for Adam Green, I just know some of the things we've interacted on.

I haven't looked at larger things on his broadcast. I'm not saying that they're not sincere or that they're not pursuing the truth. I'm certainly not calling them stupid or ignorant.

Absolutely not. I'm simply saying I profoundly, totally differ with their conclusions or how they think we're going to get from step A to step Z. And again, if the only possible scenario for this to happen is that it will be during the days of the Antichrist, who will be a false Jewish Messiah, well, no high laws are not the issue. The Antichrist is the issue. And the issue is, we already know that if we're here during times of great persecution, opposition, that have always been here through church history, but if it increases at the end of the age, and if there is a literal Antichrist, which I believe there will be, and there will be more intense persecution than ever, we know that's coming. We know that's coming.

That's nothing new. But even then it's going to have nothing to do with Noahide laws because the Antichrist will proclaim himself as God. So, anyone following him would thereby be considered an idolatrous. So that's not how it's going to play out.

And therefore it's of no concern to me whatsoever, except for the deception that goes with it. Honestly, Jonathan, where I've intersected with this, has been where followers of Jesus have fallen away. Gentile followers of Jesus have fallen away from him.

They got into some Jewish roots teaching, and maybe that was good, but then it went too far to certain extremes, and then they found much more interest in Judaism, but rather than converting to Judaism, they became what's called b'nai noach, sons of Noah. That's been a much greater issue for me. People falling away from faith in Yeshua and becoming Noahides. That's been the big issue to me. This new thing is, like I say, ridiculous as far as I will say. Thank you, Dr. Brown. I think part of the problem with a lot of this anti-Semitism is a lot of people don't realize things like the Protocols of the Learned Elders of God is a debunked document made by the Russian secret police.

You're exactly right. In other words, there have always been these claims that Jews are behind this or behind that, that during the days of the Black Plague, where a third of Europe was killed, Jews were blamed for starting it, allegedly poisoned the wells. You have a financial collapse. The Jews are the cause of it. The Jews were the root problem in Germany. They were causing the problems in Germany. Country after country, the Jews get scapegoated. As you mentioned, the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, which was a forgery by the Russian secret police based on previous documents, had nothing to do with the Jews about this alleged world takeover that was adopted and made to look. There's enough in it like, wow, yeah, I see.

Oh, look at that. Jews control the media. Look at Facebook and Jewish leadership there and Jewish leadership at Google. They're trying to take over and Jewish influence in politics and the evil Jews trying to take over.

It just plays into that mentality. Here's another lie about a Jewish world takeover. I've read things that the Jews controlled the Vatican, that the Jews were responsible for the spread of AIDS. I've documented this for years.

Yes, this is just the latest one. I'm not saying that everyone who holds to it is anti-Semitic. What I'm saying is they are swallowing outright lies and it needs to be exposed. If the price of exposing it is that people will attack me and reject me and slander me, hey, so be it.

That comes with the turf, man. I counted an honor to be lied about. I counted an honor to be slandered. I counted an honor. When it's for the truth, bring it on. I wear this badge of honor and it just reminds me that one day we get rewarded by God for doing what's right and staying what's right even when people attack. Hey, thank you, sir, for the call. 866-34-TRUTH. Let's go to upstate New York. Warren, welcome to the line of fire.

Hi, how are you doing? Let me just say, first of all, I really appreciate and feel for you dealing and teaching truth in the midst of all the craziness that is out there. We were studying the weekly Torah portion where God makes a distinction between clean and unclean, and soon the conversation actually grew into a discussion of distinctions in general. Back in the creation, God distinguishes between light and dark, day and night, the seas and the dry land. And later on, God makes a distinction between Abraham and the nations around him. God makes a distinction between the Egyptians and the native Israel.

During Habdallah, we say, bruch atah denay, hab mabdil ben kodesh leho, recognizing the distinction between that which is consecrated and that which is commonplace. So my question is, in light of the fact that Ephesians 2, 14, 15 tells us that the middle wall of partitions separating Jew and Gentile has been broken down, what role does the concept of consecration and distinction play today in the life of the believer? Yes, so it's a great question, and I'm looking in Leviticus, the 20th chapter, where God is saying, don't do what the nations are doing that you're dispossessing. Don't follow their gods, don't commit their sexual sins, don't do the things that they do. And then he says this, Leviticus 20, 25, Therefore you must distinguish the clean animal from the unclean one, and the unclean bird from the clean one.

Do not become contaminated by any land, animal, bird, or whatever crawls the ground. I have set these apart as unclean for you. You are to be holy, because I, Yahweh, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be mine. So it's fascinating to see here that God is putting the food laws in the context of separation along with sexual sin and idolatry. So what we learn is throughout the Sinai Covenant, God is putting parameters in to keep Israel separate from the nations and to remind them in the clothing they wear, in the fields they work in, in the foods they eat, in the practices that they follow, that you are separated, you are separated, you are separated from the nations. Now, with the coming of the New and Better Covenant, when Jew and Gentile are one in the Messiah, when the wall of partition is taken down so that Gentiles can freely enter into the holiest of all worlds, in other words, they could not enter the temple in Jerusalem if they went past the Gentile court, they could be put to death for doing that. Now we live these things out spiritually. In other words, whatever conclusion one comes to about dietary laws or not is very secondary. We see in Matthew 15 and Mark 7 the principle that what we eat doesn't defile us, and that's immediately taught before Jesus goes and heals the daughter of a Gentile woman. So we now take the depth and the weight and the force of the laws of separation and holiness and now we live them out spiritually in the smallest areas of our lives, in the way we think, the entertainment we watch, the words we say, how we conduct ourselves with other people, and we take hold of 2 Corinthians 7, 1, having therefore these dear promises that God will be our Father, will be his sons and daughters, having therefore these promises, yearly beloved, let us pursue holiness, let us perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord, cleansing ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit. We'll finish up on the other side of the break.

Stay right here. Thanks for joining us on A Line of Fire. It's Thoroughly Jewish Thursday. Phone lines are open. This is a great time to call with a Jewish-related question.

866-348-7884 is the number to call. And I just wanted to finish up with Warren in upstate New York. Warren, what we find is that there is an internalizing of many things that were outward under the Sinai Covenant and now become inward under the New and Better Covenant. I'll give you an example. If you look at the regulations in Leviticus about someone serving as a priest, they couldn't have a bodily defect. I mean, it's very, very detailed. They couldn't have a bodily defect if they were going to serve as a priest. Now, is that God's heart today? Can we not be part of his priesthood, as we're called to be priests, if we have a bodily defect?

No, obviously not. But there was something that was being taught there in terms of consecration, in terms of wholeness, in terms of being without blemish that now gets spiritually applied. So the whole distinction between Jew and Gentile outside of Yeshua, the distinctions there and the food laws. So if you can't sit and eat together, hang out together over food, there's going to be much less contact.

You're going to be separated. Whether a Jew lives by that today, a follower of Jesus lives by that today, is a separate question from the purpose of it, which was the purpose of separation. Now in Messiah, that wall's taken down, and we see that what had a physical calling now is a spiritual calling that together Jews and Gentiles, we separate from things that defile and are unclean.

That's how I would apply it. So it's not a separation between Jewish and Gentile believers, God forbid. Rather, it's a separation of believers from the spirit of the age and from the pollution of this world. So when I read those passages, they're very powerful to me, but not so much because of how it was lived then, but because of the spiritual implications for us today.

I agree with that. It seems to me, because we are talking about the Noahide laws, that the covenant that was given to Noah was really for all humanity, but believers, Jew and Gentile alike, many of the Gentiles are the seed of Abraham by faith, and under that covenant, that covenant was not for all humanity, but for a called humanity, a people who God has set apart. Consequently, the question is, as a royal priesthood in a holy nation, what should our conduct be? Right, exactly. So that's exactly how we live this out. Now, looking at how God separated Israel in spiritual and physical ways, how do we apply that in our own lives today? Absolutely the way that we should approach it. This means that everything is important. In other words, everything that God spoke is important if it's not that we're specifically living by it today, for example, wearing garments with mixed fabrics or sowing different seeds in a field, it's what can we learn from it?

How can that be applied? How much does God expect us to live lives of sanctification and honor to the Lord? Hey, thank you, sir, for the call. Appreciate it.

866-34-TRUTH. Hey, I'm going to try to do something kind of on the fly with our team here, and I'm going to send them a link to see if we can get to this. But we posted an animated video, we're really looking forward to getting this out, The Most Compelling Messianic Prophecy in the Bible. It's got about 15,000 views so far, we posted at the end of last month. And if we go over to YouTube, then we've got, oh, let's see how many comments so far. 200 something comments and the likes, thumbs up, 827 to thumbs down, 9.

So people are appreciating it. But our goal is to get it, focuses on Isaiah 53, to get it to people who differ, to get it to people who have different perspectives. And I'm looking down over on YouTube, when I look at the newest comments, one that came in, oh, looks like yesterday, from L-L-L-L-L-L-L-M-1, I can't believe people still fall for this garbage.

I'm going to see if I can get that on the screen for you, because I'm going to take a moment, interact with this comment. So, what do we make of this objection to Isaiah 53 being a messianic prophecy posted in response to our YouTube video? The gentleman or woman writing, I can't believe people still fall for this garbage. Dr. Brown is fully aware of all the mistranslations and lies he's spreading. No, quite the contrary. Based on decades of careful research of the Hebrew text and decades of interaction with other scholars and rabbis, I'm 100% convinced of the accuracy of everything I'm saying. There's only one servant. He admitted that the servant is the Jewish people all over the place. Actually, what I said was that sometimes the servant is Israel, as explicit, say, in Isaiah 41, and other times the servant is the Messiah, as, for example, the Targum and Radak, Rabbi David Kimchi, acknowledged for Isaiah 42, or rabbinic interpretation of Isaiah 49, and Isaiah 50 says that the servant there is the prophet, or the prophets in general in the 50th chapter, and then 5213 to 5315, famously, in Midrash Tanchuma, as repeated in Yalku Chimoni, this is interpreted with reference to the Messiah, who will be more exalted than Abraham or Moses or the ministering angels. So what I said is sometimes the servant is Israel, other times the rabbis themselves, the traditional rabbis themselves, say that the servant is the Messiah, and sometimes they say the servant is the prophet. So just using rabbinic interpretation only from Isaiah 41 to 53, using rabbinic interpretation only, you would see three different servants, or if not four, the nation as a whole, the righteous remnant within the nation, the Messiah, and the prophet, just using rabbinic interpretation, orthodox Jewish interpretation. Fact.

Fact. Okay, let's go back to the comments. There's no place anywhere that it indicates an individual servant. Isaiah 42 says my chosen. Who are the chosen people? Yeah, but how about chosen people? And how about chosen individuals? You have chosen people, you have chosen individuals. There have been no chosen individuals in the nation's history, and the Messiah is not considered God's chosen one, and David as an individual is not considered God's chosen one.

And what is a Targum? And what is Rabbi David Kempe? These are authoritative in traditional Judaism or highly regarded. Why do they say Isaiah 42 is referring to the Messiah? And what about Isaiah 49, where the individual servant is tasked with regathering Israel and the nations?

Or Isaiah 50, where the individual servant is a prophet who's being beaten by his own people? Fact. Truth. Fact. Truth.

That's what we're looking at. Read 52 and 54. Everyone agrees the servant is the Jewish people. Actually in 54 it doesn't say servant. Servant in the singular stops at the end of 53.

It's servants elsewhere in the following chapters. 54 is a promise to Jerusalem. Why is a promise to Jerusalem given? Because salvation comes through the Messiah.

So here's a question. The servant, according to the rabbis, according to the traditional rabbis, the servant in Isaiah 49 and the servant in Isaiah 50 is a prophet. Why then should it change to Israel in 52? And where does it say my servant Israel in 52? It doesn't.

Here's what it's talking about. It's showing the Jewish people coming out of Babylonian exile, being delivered, and who's the deliverer? One is blind.

That's the people. The other opens the eyes of the blind. That's the Messiah. One is in exile because of sin. The other dies for the people's sin so that they can be free.

It flows beautifully and naturally. He knows perfectly well that it doesn't say in verse 5 for our transgressions. Actually, I know perfectly well it does say that.

Mipnei, because of. Read Jewish translations after Jewish translations. Here, tell you what. Let's read from the New Jewish Publication Society translation. I'm going to go over to Isaiah 53 and I'm going to get one of the most respected Jewish translations. In fact, in my view, the best Jewish translation that's been done of the Hebrew Bible. And how is this rendered now in the New Jewish Publication Society version? But he was wounded because of our sins. Crushed because of our iniquities.

He bore the chest husband and made us whole and by his bruises we were healed. Please, sir, before you attack me, learn the language better. It says because of. Yeah, because of. Exactly. Because of.

That's exactly right. What do you think it means? When we say for our sins, he suffered for our sins. He suffered because of our sins. It was our sins he's paying for. We understand what that means. To make them two separate things.

Please. It's not what I'm saying. That's what the language says. It doesn't say in verse eight he suffered. It says they suffered. Oh, boy.

Here. Once again, these things have been answered decades ago in detail. So Isaiah 53, 8. Again, I'm going to read from the New Jewish Publication Society version. By oppressive judgment he was taken away. Who could describe his abode? For he was cut off from the land of living. Does it say he or they?

It says he. Through the sin of my people, who deserved the punishment? A stroke for them. So I don't mind someone differing intelligently. It's when they publicly rebuke me and in the process rebuke themselves. Exposing lack of knowledge, not just of the Hebrew, but of Jewish tradition.

Say the truth and then let people decide. You say to me, stop spreading lies to trick people into believing what you want. No, I'm spreading the truth, and I'm speaking the truth, and I'm urging people, read the Bible for yourself. And our Jewish people, read it, study it in Hebrew for yourself.

Because I know where it points. It points to Yeshua, the Messiah. What does it say in Isaiah 53, 6? All of us like sheep went astray. Each one turned to his own way.

V'adonai hivkiyabot et avon kulamah. But the Lord has visited upon him. What? The iniquity of all of us. The Lord visited on him. He died for our sins, because of our sins, on behalf of our sins.

And by his wounds, there's healing for us. Truth. Truth.

I only speak the truth. Don't forget, friends, we still have room, limited room. Our trip to Israel was originally for May of this year, then got moved to October, then moved to March. God willing, everything will be open. It's a great time of the year to be in Israel.

So it's right at the end of February, beginning of March. So go to my website, askdrbrown.org to find out more and to sign up today. Let's go over to South Africa birdie. Did we talk years ago about hypergrace? Are you the same birdie? I'm the same birdie. Years ago we spoke on it, yes. Nice to hear from you. Quite a bright mind.

Well, listen, it's not that many birdies from South Africa I hear from, so the name stuck with me. But nice to hear from you, sir. What's up? Yeah, good to call in. I first just want to just compliment you on the balance that you're bringing in, not putting an over-focus on, or making a Christ out of your president, and keeping the focus on Jesus. And I think that is so needed today. I've got myself quite a following from the US, and it is quite strange for me to see people for three years have their pages flooded with the Gospel, and then the fourth year it's flooded with politics.

And then three years Gospel, one year politics, three years Gospel, one year politics. And thank you for what you are doing. Not many people go out and speak about that, which I think is very needed. I appreciate that. I appreciate the perspective from overseas, too, because we get so caught up in it, we don't realize how bizarre it looks. And then the way Trump has exalted, like a savior figure, you've got to see a lot of that, too, that's very disturbing.

It is disturbing to me, Dr. Brown, because when I look at that, and I've had people say to me, but they don't put their trust in the president, and then I would just ask them the question, well, do you think there's hope for the country if Biden wins? Yep. And that answer will tell you if your hope is in a man or in the Lord. Really, yeah.

Simple as that. So where is your true hope? I think we can have hope in Christ, doesn't matter what happens. I've got a question about, I'm doing a study on Acts, and I look at Luke and he's writing there, and I mean Luke in his letter that he wrote to Theophilus, who he might have been, I don't think it's so relevant, but let's say it was a person that he was writing to. He puts a lot of emphasis on the persecution that comes from the Jews, even when he goes over to the chapter 12 onwards talking about Paul now, and what Paul was going through. He was basically all the time in the background saying that the Jews were behind this thing, and I mean I read through Acts several times, and that is the feeling I get if you just read everything in one sitting a few times, just to get the feeling of the whole letter. Why would you say that he'd do that? Because I'm sure there was also persecution from Gentiles, but he does mention that, but the focus is so much on the Jews.

Why would you think would that be the case? Maybe there was something that you know that he tried to get over that can help me in my study on this. I just want to verify first that there is an emphasis there, both in John and then in Acts, an emphasis on Jewish persecution or mentioning Jews specifically. Just looking at the numbers as I'm scrolling through a concordance here, you've got the largest number of mentioning of Jews in John and then in Acts, and then right up until the end of the book. So obviously critics would accuse him of anti-Semitism or something like that, but you know he's gone. They would say he was the Greek or he was a Gentile, and he's maybe got an underlying racism going there or something. Today that would be a type of accusation. Now there are some who have actually argued that Luke himself was Jewish, that the reference in the end of Colossians is misunderstood as if he was not part of the circumcision party.

But either way, let's just put that as a question mark. Let's accept that he may have been a Gentile. We know in Luke's Gospel that he doesn't mention the opposition of the Pharisees nearly as much as Matthew does. He even has a few passages pointing positively to the Pharisees, and we know he emphasizes the promises of David and things. So what happens in Acts? Basically, I would understand that as a traveling companion of Paul, and that's some of the we in the book of Acts, that he witnessed firsthand this constant opposition, because remember that in those days this was mainly a Jewish thing, and now to get the Gentiles involved, they were the small minority coming in. They were kind of the outsiders coming in, and this first generation, the great responsibility is on the Jewish people themselves.

So if you're just kind of traveling with Paul, now it does mention for example the 14th chapter, where he's stoned apparently to death in Lystra. It does mention other persecution. In Philippi, they're persecuted as Jews. They're accused of being Jews.

So Luke is laying out. In fact, some of the most dramatic persecution accounts are with Gentiles attacking Paul and his party. But the first part of Acts, as you mentioned... But even in some of those cases, the Jews would have stood them up to do it. Yes, well that's the reality.

In other words, that's what happened. And now centuries later, when the Gentile church is dominant in controlling society and persecuting Jews, now persecuting Jews for their evil deeds allegedly, it can look a whole different way, but in those days this was a Jewish conflict. The temple, as I understand it, was not yet destroyed, as Luke is writing, or he's looking just in the immediate aftermath of the temple being destroyed. So these are momentous things for the history of Israel. You ask, if he had been a prophet like Isaiah or Jeremiah living, there would have been day and night rebuke. You've missed the Messiah. You crucified the Messiah.

Now that he's risen from the dead, you've rejected him. And we even have church historians like James Parks have documented that in the first few centuries, in different cities, because the Christians now could bring trouble on the Jews, or the Christians could be accused of being a new sect, that there was often Jewish resistance to the Gospel in these different cities that spurred on the Gentile resistance, or the resistance of the leadership, and that in turn created Christian hostility towards the Jews. So it's a sad fact. It happened like that. I think Paul was correcting that in Romans. If you read Romans and you do the whole thing, you get to chapter 11, 12, you start to realize that he is correcting, he's actually setting the Gentiles up, saying, you know, the Jews did all these things, and he gets to the point and says, but you're in the very same boat as what they are in, so don't start to throw stones now. And not only that, he says, not only that, once against Gentile arrogance, because remember, let's put this in context, this starts as a congregation of Jewish believers in Rome, which now begins to incorporate Gentile believers, so they're the outsiders coming in, and then Claudius issues an edict, Emperor Claudius, that all Jews are expelled from Rome, so they all leave, including Jewish believers.

About ten years later, they come back. Now it's a Gentile congregation that Jews are coming back to. It's the whole picture of the natural branches. I believe the edict's mentioned in Luke 18, but the natural branch is being grafted back in, so you have that whole cultural aspect going on. And then Paul says, look, Gentile believers are called to provoke Israel to envy, and ultimately, all Israel will be saved, there will be a national turning, and he says, right now, it is for your sake that they are enemies because of the Gospel, but they're still loved by God because of the fathers. So Paul's emphasizing that, but this is what happened. Luke is telling us accurately, and to whom much is given, much is required. And the problem is now, through the lens of church history, how Jews can look at this, but we have to say, no, it was accurately reported, it does point to things that really did happen, and what does the whole Bible say?

If you just read some of the prophets rebuking Israel, or some parts of the Torah where Moses says, look, you've sinned in my lifetime, you're going to get much worse while I'm gone, you can come to one conclusion, but then you have to keep reading, read the rest of the New Testament, read the rest of the witness, where the promises to Israel are reaffirmed. I agree with that. I've just got one more quick question there, Dr. Brown, if you don't mind. Yeah, real quick, go ahead.

Okay, I live in South Africa, you know we are famous for the apartheid system that we have here. And Paul says that he refers to no man after the flesh, although they did refer to Christ after the flesh, but not so anymore. How does that play into referring to Jews, if we refer to no person according to the flesh, not even Christ, meaning that Christ Jesus, like Jesus when he died, he died as a Jew, but when he was raised from the dead, he was raised in a glorified body, which was born from the Father.

Yeah, just to jump in, I apologize for interrupting, but I only have 20 seconds to answer. Not referring after the flesh would mean having a fleshly or worldly view of something. We still talk about males and females. Paul can still write to the Gentile believers as Gentiles called to provoke Israel. So those distinctions remain, but we don't make judgment based on that.

We don't make evaluation based if there's a higher or lower or caste system or class system. Hey, delight to touch base with you. May the Lord use you in South Africa and beyond. Anyone I couldn't get to today, looking at the phones now, call Amara. We'll put you at the top of the list.