The Enemies of Israel

The following program is recorded content created by Truth Network. Calling 866-34-TRUTH. That's 866-34-TRUTH. And remember, if you're new to listening or watching, I welcome calls from those who differ with me, those who just want more information, those who agree with me. So if you really have an issue with things I'm saying, by all means, give me a call.

866-348-7884. And in a moment, I'm going to give you an opportunity to stand with us in a really important outreach. But first, let me bottom line things for you. The Jewish people are like everyone else. I've said it many times that we Jews are like everyone else, except more so.

Meaning that we have strengths and weaknesses like everyone else and sometimes the strengths are exaggerated, sometimes the weaknesses are exaggerated. But just like everyone else on the planet, every group, every ethnicity, every race, you have Jews who are nice people and not nice people. You have Jews who are generous and Jews who are greedy. You have Jews who are atheists and Jews who are devout. You have all ranges of people among the Jewish people. And that means if a Jewish person does something wrong, you can differ with that person.

If the nation of Israel acts in a way that we feel is unjust or wrong, we can address it. You're not a Jew hater if you take issue with a particular Israeli policy and you have good reasons for it. You're not a Jew hater if you take issue with a particular Jewish person. You are a Jew hater if you brand all Jews as evil. You are a Jew hater if you delegitimize Israel because it is Jewish. You are a Jew hater when you generalize and caricature and speak evil words or have evil thoughts about the people as a people. And bottom line is this. Satan wants to wipe out the Jewish people.

It is really simple. Satan hates the Jewish people because they have been chosen by God for a mission and because God has identified himself with the people of Israel. When the children of Israel were in exile, God said through the prophet Ezekiel in the 36th chapter that his name was blasphemed because of that. He said through the prophet Isaiah in the 52nd chapter that his name was blasphemed because his people were in exile. And it looked like the God of Israel was powerless and his holy temple in Jerusalem was destroyed and his people were now under the power of their enemies.

It made God look bad. God has identified with Israel and God has given promises for example Jeremiah 31 verses 35 to 37 that no matter what happens, no matter what Israel does, no matter what sins are committed, as long as heaven and earth exist, the Jewish people will exist as a people. God promised that. So if you're Satan, you want to wipe out this chosen people. You want to destroy them and make God into a liar. And then ultimately you realize that the Jewish people are the ones through whom the Messiah came. If you're the devil, you understand that the Messiah of Israel is the Savior of the world. You understand that God used people like Moses and Isaiah and Paul and John, all of them Jews, to point to Jesus, Yeshua, the Messiah.

And therefore you are going to oppose even more Jews following this Jesus, the Messiah. And Satan understanding certain aspects of prophecy, I'm sure certain things are hidden from him and he's blinded to it, but other things are laid out and he understands. I believe he understands plainly that Jesus is coming back to physical Jerusalem. His feet will touch on the Mount of Olives as per Zechariah 14 and Acts 1. Study the passages for themselves.

It's pretty straightforward. His feet will touch there. And a Jewish Jerusalem must welcome him back.

Why do I say that? Well in Acts 3, Peter tells his Jewish people that if they repent, God will send the Messiah. The Jewish repentance is a key for the return of the Messiah. We see at the end of Matthew 23, after the seven woes on the religious hypocrites, that Jesus pronounces woes over Jerusalem and says, Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you killed the prophets and stole those sent to you.

How often I long to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you are not willing. Behold, your house has left you desolate, for I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Baruch haba b'shem Adonai.

What does that mean? It's the words from Psalm 118 that became used as words of praise to welcome the Messianic King. We welcome you, King Messiah. That's what happened on what we call Palm Sunday when he entered Jerusalem and people were hailing him as the son of David, recognizing him as the Messiah.

Baruch haba b'shem Adonai. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. And then what happens is he's rejected. He's given over to the Romans to be crucified. He rises from the dead. But before that, he says, You will not see me again, Jerusalem, speaking in particular of the leaders. You will not see me again until you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. In other words, until you recognize me as the Messiah.

You say, Yeah, but that's a word of judgment. Yes, but it's also a word of promise. Because look, Revelation 1 7 says, When he comes, every eye will see him. But here in Matthew 23 39, he says that you will not see me, Jerusalem, until you welcome me back as the Messianic King. Which means if Jerusalem won't see him until it welcomes him back as the king, then no one will see him until he is welcome back as the Messianic King by the Jewish people in Jerusalem. Therefore, if you're the devil, you want to wipe the Jewish people out. If you cannot wipe the Jewish people out, by all means, you want to keep them out of Jerusalem and keep Jerusalem out of their hands. And if that fails, then whatever come what may, you must keep Jewish people away from Jesus the Messiah.

Because just as it is essential, and it is God's heart that the gospel goes to the whole world. There's no favoritism in God. God cares about every human being on this planet, Jew or Gentile. God wants to see Palestinians saved. God wants to see Jewish people saved.

It's the same. He cares for each one. He has certain calls and functions and roles to play in this world, but he cares for each individual and Jesus died for those individuals the same. And the great bulk of world missions effort is to reach the whole world, to reach the overwhelming population of the world that is not Jewish. And that's what the church has been doing for century after century after century after century. And the vast, vast, vast, vast majority of resources go to reach the lost around the world in terms of missions outreach. And there's a small portion that goes to Jewish outreach, understandably, because the Jewish people are a small portion of the percentage of people on the earth. So God's heart beats for the whole world. Our School of Ministry, by God's grace, birthed a missions organization, Fire International.

You can find out about it by going to fire-international.org and seeing what these missionaries are doing around the world. And many, we can't print where they are or what they're doing. It's too sensitive.

It's too dangerous. That was birthed at a revival movement in our heart to see the gospel go to the whole world. So the last thing I'm saying is only concentrate on Israel.

No. God's heart is for the whole world and this gospel of the kingdom must be preached as a witness in all nations and then the end will come. And how does Paul explain it in Romans 11, 25, and 26 that the fullness of the Gentiles will come in and the hardening will be removed from Israel and so all Israel will be saved on the heels of the fullness of the Gentiles and perhaps even provoked spiritually by the fullness of the Gentiles.

And then this glorious event, the Messiah's return ushered in by his own Jewish people in Jerusalem who welcome him, recognize him as the Messianic King as the whole world is praying, even so come Lord Jesus. Let's understand this plainly. If you've ever read about the Holocaust and the monstrous demonic evil of it. Yes, human beings have committed atrocities against human beings through the ages right to this moment. And there are all types of terrible things that we need to think about and know about in world history, in our nation and around the world in terms of human atrocities. There is a dimension of evil in the Holocaust though when you just read the books and the death camps and they're just slaughtering as many thousands of Jews, men, women and children by the second every day that they can simply because they're Jews.

There's a monstrous nature of that evil and you look at it and say, okay, I know there are human beings doing it and they're fully responsible, but there's something so demonic about it. And the same demonic entities, the same devil that inspired the Nazis is also inspiring Hamas terrorists to wipe out as many Jews as possible, to slaughter the Jews, to destroy the Jews. Oh no, Hamas is not doing what the Nazis did in that same way. Whatever Hamas is doing is not on that same level of evil in terms of the systematized extermination of a people. Now if Hamas had total power, who knows what they would do. But here, let me put a graphic up for those who are watching. It's a graphic of the nation of Israel surrounded by Muslim countries, surrounded by hostile countries and you might have a debate about one country on the map or where exactly they fit ideologically.

But it's really quite striking. Now you've got more potential peace with some of the surrounding nations, but if you're looking at it, you've got this tiny, tiny little red sliver on the map that I'm looking at. Tiny, tiny little red sliver, and that's Israel.

And you've got over to the right of it, so to the east, you've got Jordan, then southeast, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, then further over to the east, Iraq, to the north, Lebanon, then Syria, and then to the southwest, Egypt, and beneath that Sudan, and then Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, etc. And when you keep making it larger and larger, you realize this is tiny, tiny little sliver. Tiny sliver, Israel. And for decades, surrounded by hostile enemies that want to wipe it out, and yet, and yet, the world is an uproar when Israel defends itself. And as Christians are slaughtered daily around the world, there's barely even a little big deal. Israel kills Palestinians, fighting in self-defense, and the whole world is an uproar, ready to bash Israel again.

Why? It's satanic, friends. It is ultimately satanic. Satan wants to wipe out the Jewish people.

It's the only way to fully explain, yes, there's been divine judgment and chastising, yes, Israel's made wrong choices, the Jewish people have made wrong choices, but ultimately, Satan wants to wipe out the Jews. Bottom line! All right, I'm going to get you a bunch of calls today, 866-348-7884, looking at the phone lines. We've got a couple phone lines open, so great time to call in, and I want to share a special opportunity with you.

Stay right here. Welcome, welcome to Thoroughly Jewish Thursday, that beautiful Hasidic singing of Psalm 121. I see a quote, a post from Jeremy on Facebook, the Jews stand up against the state of Israel like many of them are. Actually, actually, what Israel allows is all types of criticism and self-criticism, and it welcomes its own people, Israelis, differing with the government, differing with the right, it welcomes its own people, siding with Muslim activists and others, because there's diversity of views allowed there. Whereas if you go over to Gaza Strip, or you go over to the West Bank under Palestinian authority, those open views of dissent and difference will not be tolerated. And it's a revealing thing, and it's ironic, and it's just another example of the demonic nature of anti-Semitism, that you'll have anti-Israel, pro-Hamas marches. Remember, Hamas is a terrorist organization. And you'll often have gay and lesbian and radical feminist activists leading the marches or participating in the marches.

I've seen it quite a few times. And the irony is, of course, that they'd be welcomed to march in Israel. Gay activists, radical feminists, others, they'd be welcomed to march. They'd feel totally at home in Tel Aviv.

Talk about feeling at home. You bet they would. And they're protesting against Israel, against the monster Israel. On the other hand, you try that same march, openly gay, lesbian, radical feminist march in Gaza Strip, that's the last march of your life. You're either dead or in jail. And yet they're the ones they're marching for.

Ironic, isn't it? Okay, I will tell you about an opportunity to stand with us in a moment, but first, let's take some calls, and we will start with David in Lake Elsinore, California. Welcome to the line of fire. Hi, Dr. Brian. Can you hear me? Yep, I can.

Awesome, thanks for taking my call. All right, so if I can just preface it a little bit, a question. So first off, I agree with everything that you've said so far on today's show.

I am. I do believe that Israel has a right to the land as God promised Abraham. I believe in the everlasting covenant that God made with Abraham in that sense.

I do believe that it was God that brought Israel back to the land, by whatever means, right? And over the last month and a half or so, I've really been trying to understand the origins of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and I found it so much more complex than I ever even imagined. And it's just been super humbling to me to see the, I guess, I'm sorry, it's a little bit of emotional thing, but so trying to come to terms with the fact that both sides of different groups of Zionists and Arabs have had back and forth conflicts and committed like really atrocious, you know, things towards one another, done really terrible things towards one another, even people that would claim that that was terrorist activity that, for instance, the Irgun or the Stern Gang, different sects of Zionist right-wing extremists would have been pushing this, right?

And I'm trying to understand this. I honestly don't even know if it's fully true because I've tried looking at these sources, articles, history, all that stuff. And it seems like some sources, some links will almost emphasize the terrible things that Zionists did towards the Arabs. And then pro-Zionist sources will show that there's no history of it, or at least make it seem it's the exact opposite, where it was like a very cordial, like them just trying to save civilians over here and really just go after the bad guys, right? But then on the pro-Arab side or pro-Palestinian side, they'll say that they slaughtered a bunch of civilians, men who have children, all that stuff. I'm really just trying to understand it, Dr. Brown, if you can help me or lead, point me towards some kind of really great material, books, resources, videos, anything, really I'm just trying to understand. Absolutely.

And I love the approach. In other words, you're convinced by Scripture, theologically, that God brought the Jewish people back to the land and that it is a promise that God gave, not based on Israel's goodness, but on God's goodness. And it was a one-way covenant when God made it with the patriarchs, unconditional.

You have the Sinai covenant, where coming back to the land is conditioned on repentance, but as Paul explains in Galatians 3, that the promise which precedes the law cannot be annulled by the law, so God at any point can say, hey, I'm keeping my promise. But that doesn't mean that everything Israel does is perfect or everything the Palestinians do is evil. So it's good to search and look.

A few things. First, I really encourage you to watch this documentary. It is called Hope in the Holy Land. I had folks that put it together on the air last week, but hopeintheholyland.com.

You can go there, you can rent it or buy it digitally or purchase Blu-ray. I'm looking at the website and I just typed it in as we were talking. It's really powerful. I was blown away by how fair it was, by the interviews with Palestinians, by the interviews with Israelis, by hearing hearts on one side and the other.

Hopeintheholyland.com. That's a really edifying thing to watch. It'll give you a heart for everyone as well as, I believe, give you a larger perspective of right and wrong. Then a couple of books that I'd highly recommend. One of them is by Efraim Karsh, K-A-R-S-H, and it's called Palestine Betrayed. He's Israeli but a top Middle Eastern scholar, I believe teaches in England, professor in England. Palestine Betrayed, Efraim Karsh, K-A-R-S-H. And what happened was documents that had been sealed for many years were opened up.

Researchers could then go firsthand and read things. And what he'll show you consistently is the choices of the Arab leaders were destructive. That when peace was offered, when arrangements were offered, that Arab leaders consistently rejected those peace offers and that's ultimately why the Palestinians are suffering.

Even to this day it's the case. And as for the question of right and wrong and atrocities, the first atrocities are committed under radical Islamic leadership. You have to remember this was a religious issue. Most of the Jews returning back to the land were fairly secular. Most of the religious settlers were waiting for the Messiah to reestablish the land. But for the Muslim population, and just a quick historical overview. There's always been a Jewish presence in the land for the last 2,000 years despite exile, but it's been a minority presence. And the area has been controlled either by the church or by Islam and then ultimately Ottoman Empire then under the British mandate after World War I. But what happened was you had a majority Arab population, a minority Jewish population and other groups there as well.

When you get into the late 1800s there was an increase of Jews coming back to the land and beginning to develop it. Which then was positive for the Arab population, the surrounding nations. There was never a Palestinian people or statehood.

This was just part of Greater Syria or part of the Ottoman Empire. It was not like we live here where the Palestinians. There was no such identity. There was no Palestinian flag or nationality or history or coinage.

That didn't exist. Now you had some people who may have been in the land for 1800 years. It's possible that there were Jews who were there originally and stayed there through the centuries and then converted under pressure to Islam. And some of those we identify as Palestinians. There's actually Jewish DNA among some that we call Palestinians.

It's very interesting when you research that. But the majority started to come a little over 100 years ago. As more Jews came into the land developing the land, more Arabs came into the land because they would work the land. And for the most part they were working side by side. In other words there was not constant hostility and murder and things like that. Beginning in the 1920s under Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem who became a confidant to Adolf Hitler, he organized the first intifada or pogrom against the Jewish people where Jews and Hebron were slaughtered.

And this was the beginning. It started with religious Islamic resistance to the Jews being in the land because after all the Jews were the descendants of apes and pigs and the Jews were cursed and this was not their land anymore. By 1937 the Peel Commission under Great Britain said, okay, let's do this. We'll have Jerusalem and other parts of the country under British and international control. Jews will get roughly 15 something percent of the land. Arabs will get roughly 75 percent of the land. The Jewish leadership really debated it, leaning towards accepting it, but the Arab leadership overwhelmingly said, no, we're not giving up any of the land.

No. So now you get to 1947 partition plan and at this point Jewish leadership saying, okay, we accept this. It's a much worse arrangement in terms of, or it's still a bad arrangement in terms of how much land we get, but we'll take it. Arab leaders, of course not. This is worse than the first arrangement.

No way. We'll wipe the Jews out. And this is the beginning of the big problem as the surrounding nations attack Israel. And were there atrocities committed by Irgun or Stern Gang?

Yeah, they would be similar to a lot of what happened in the Revolutionary War as American freedom fighters were pushing back against British resistance. And there were cases, you have to remember, that Jews are trying to flee from Europe. They are trying to flee from the Holocaust to Palestine and Britain is saying, no, you can't enter in.

You cannot come here. So Jews living there are watching their people being slaughtered by the millions. And now they can't take refuge in Palestine. Yeah, so there was some bloodshed. There were British leaders that were assassinated by Jews. That happened. But you also had the ethic that before they bomb a building or like the King David Hotel, they tell everyone get out because we're going to bomb the place.

Get out. So it wasn't like you had this monstrous terrorism. Most of it was just fighting for survival.

And most of it was a response to surrounding Islamic terrorism. It is a reality. I'm going to comment a bit more on that on the other side of the break and then get to all of your other calls. I will today 866-34-TRUTH. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us on this thoroughly Jewish Thursday 866-34-TRUTH. There's an important book by Benny Morris on the 1948 war.

So Benny Morris 1948 that gets in depth with a lot of insight there and lays things out in terms of what happened internationally and locally as well. Let me paint this picture for you before I go to the phones 866-34-TRUTH. So 1947 Israel accepts the partition plan. It's still tenuous.

It's going to be very difficult to defend the nation. It's better than what was offered ten years earlier with the Peel Commission. But Israel says yes to it. Wonderful quotes from Golda Meir, David Ben-Gurion saying, look, we can all live side by side. There's plenty of room here. We can live as neighbors.

Let's do it. The Arab leadership, the Muslim leadership, no, we will destroy the Jews. We will push you into the sea.

Absolutely not. You have to remember that in Islamic thought, if a territory was once controlled by Islam, especially something as important as the Middle East, Palestine, and specifically Jerusalem with the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, and it's from thence that Muhammad allegedly makes his heavenly ascent on his steed. So if something was once under Islamic control and now is wrested from Islamic control, that's an affront. That would be, sir, like someone taking off with your wife. How could that be? Or you come back from a business trip and someone's moved into your home and taken it over with your family.

How could that be? Especially the Jews, of all people. The Jews.

So this was unthinkable to the Islamic world. Plus, it's this fledgling little nation, barely able to survive, just coming out of the ashes of the Holocaust. So the five surrounding nations attack. Of course, Israel has to fight for its life.

And yes, I have no hesitation in saying that God miraculously preserved the Jewish people in the midst of the attack. So what happens? Israel declares its independence, and with this, about 800,000 Jews from all the surrounding Islamic nations are now exiled.

Get out. Jews, get out. Most of them flee to Israel. Others go to other parts of the world. But most of them flee to Israel. And of course, Israel welcomes them, so now they've got to figure out how to incorporate all these new people pouring in and fight for their lives at the same time. While this is going on, you have maybe 800,000 Arabs living in what was called Palestine now, Israel. What happens to them? Well, about 200,000 of them, so roughly. These are rough figures. About a quarter of them stay, will stay and will be neighbors here side by side with Israel.

That 200,000 is over a million and a half today. These are Arabs living in Palestine. They have seats in the Knesset. So in the Arabs living in Israel now, they have seats in the Knesset, the parliament, Supreme Court justices Arab. They are involved in every area of society, but they're not required to fight in the military for various reasons and a good thing, positive for them to not be required.

Okay. Tensions have been flaring a lot recently with the Arabs in different community and Jews in different community, but many have lived side by side and worked side by side over the years. So that 200,000 of Arabs there became over a million and a half. The other 600,000, what happened to them? Well, they fled because of the war. Some of them simply fled because there was war. They didn't want to be in a war zone.

They got out of there. Many of them fled over to Gaza Strip, which is why it's so populated as it's grown from there. Others fled because the Muslim leadership told them to.

Famously, they said it can and can't distinguish between a Jew and a Muslim or a Jew and an Arab. So you get out of there, we'll destroy the Jews, drive them into the sea, then come back to your homes and all that. Well, they didn't destroy the Jews.

They didn't drive them into the sea. So those Arab homes now became Jewish homes. And then others fled because Jews drove them out. In other words, in the midst of war, that there were aggressive Jews in the military that drove them out.

Those things did happen. But there was no genocide. There was no attempt to wipe the people out. There was an attempt to not have war and live side by side. And in the war, are there atrocities? Yes, on all sides there were atrocities that were committed. But it was not the Jewish ethic overall. And the Jewish appeal was by and large to stay and be neighbors.

Rather than, obviously once war starts, then you're fighting for your lives. So what that's meant now, also with the Arab League in the 1950s saying we will not receive any refugees from Palestine. So now where do you go? You're in refugee camps. You're in the West Bank. You're in refugee camps. You're in refugee camps in Jordan, in Lebanon, in Syria, and things like that.

Because they're not going to receive you or incorporate you. So this is now going to be an ongoing blemish. This is now going to be an ongoing stench to make Israel look bad, the refugee crisis.

And now the numbers multiply, multiply, multiply over the years. So now they still have refugee status. This is after 1948.

Think of it. This does not exist anywhere else in the world. Refugees get incorporated elsewhere. But no, this is an ongoing blemish to make Israel look bad. And it's been fostered by Arab and Muslim leadership. Has Israel acted perfectly in all this?

No, of course not. And what happens then, Six-Day War in 1967. Again, Israel fighting for its life. Israel recognizes they're about to be attacked, so striking preemptively. So they now capture reunified Jerusalem. Capture Judea, Samaria would be called the West Bank of Jordan.

Now have control over that. So now have control over the Palestinians living there. And that's the ongoing situation. No, the Palestinians living there, what we call the West Bank, do not have the exact same rights as their Palestinian brothers and sisters living under Israel proper. They don't. There are inequities. The people of Gaza absolutely do not have those same rights. But it's primarily due to corrupt Islamic leadership.

Last thing I want to say. You may have heard about the wall, the wall that Israel put up to grab land and to further demoralize the Palestinians. It's actually about 95 percent fence, security fence. Why was it built? To keep murderers out. To keep murderers out.

And it's worked well in that regard. About 5 percent of it is wall. And why wall? Well, let's keep snipers out. Because the areas there, snipers were killing people. So if you can keep murderers out from shooting your children and your wives and your daughters and your men, if you can keep them out, you gladly do that.

Any nation that had the power to do that would do it. But Israelis in general don't like the fence or the wall. Palestinians certainly don't like the fence or the wall.

It's divided communities and things like that and controversy over wives here. It's taking land and so on and resources. But what's fascinating is if you listen to the man who designed the wall, he talks about the hole of hope.

You say, what's that? Well, at the top of the wall in the structure, there's little holes on the top of each piece waiting for the day when they can stick the cranes in there or whatever tool it is through that hole and pull that piece of wall out. So the wall does not exist anymore. Everybody, ultimately, when I say everybody, by and large, people would like to see the wall come down where it is and the fence come down where it is. What's that going to take? It's going to take leadership saying, let's figure out how we can dwell side by side.

And the old adage may be a little caricatured or exaggerated, but the old adage is true. If the Palestinians put down their weapons, meaning the terrorists, meaning the leadership, meaning the bad blood among them, not all the people, of course not. But if the Palestinians would put down their weapons, there'd be no more war. If Israel put down their weapons, there'd be no more Israel. That's the sad reality. So focus on the corrupt Palestinian leadership. Change in leadership would also lessen some of the radicalizing, some of the Israeli leadership is going further to the right and further hostile to the Arabs in very ugly positions, but that remains the minority. And a lot of this is in reaction to the constant death threats. So that's an overview.

Study it for yourself. And then watch the video Hope in the Holy Land dot com. All right.

So that was to finish things off with David. All right. Go into the phones in one moment. But I want to invite you to partner with us, friends. Just got news that real kosher Jesus at great cost and effort has been translated into Hebrew. We were able to provide funds for the printing of the book. It's about finally about to be printed. There were all kinds of delays because of covid and now delays because of the war, the attacks.

But it should be printed in a few weeks. We're working with others in Israel to distribute it, especially to nonbelieving Jews. We've helped fund this. The overwhelming work of this folks have given to us. We've helped fund. We've put a ton of effort and energy into outreach shows for METV Middle East TV, which airs all over Israel.

If you have cable, you have that network. Now organization we're working with has put Hebrew captions to this. So this is on that you're watching.

It's in English, but with Hebrew captions, which is how Israelis watch movies and things with Hebrew captions. And we are working in other ways behind the scenes with key outreach to Jewish people, religious Jewish people in Israel. I'm inviting you to partner with us. It's sacred work, friends. It's sacred work. I'm inviting you to partner with us and help us with a one time gift.

Go to AskDrBrown.org, A-S-K-D-R Brown.org. Whether it's $5 or $50,000, whether it's $1 or $100, every gift matters. And I'm inviting you to partner with us. We are uniquely on the front lines in many ways in Jewish outreach and evangelism. And while we expose anti-Semitism and fight against the evils in the society and wrong theology in the church, at the same time we are engaging in reaching the lost sheep of the House of Israel. Would you partner with us? I'm making an appeal and asking you to stand with us in helping us reach Jewish people with the good news of the Messiah.

Is there anything more sacred than that? AskDrBrown.org, A-S-K-D-R Brown.org. Click on donate and thank you, friends, for your special one time gift at this time of the year. We really appreciate it. All right, back to the phones. Let's go to Danielle in Kansas City, Missouri. Welcome to the Line of Fire. Hi, Dr. Brown. Thank you so much for having me.

You bet. I have a question. I am an Arab-Israeli. My family is from Haifa and my extended family has lived in Jerusalem for hundreds of years.

And my question is, I guess it's around the identity of the Jewish people. Like, I'm a Christian. I believe Jesus. I love Jesus. He's Lord.

And I really want to posture my heart to pray for the Jewish people. Yet the struggle is their identity. Like, who are they? I mean, you have somebody named Karen from Wisconsin that has an identity crisis. She converts to Judaism. She's as white as daylight, no offense. And then she moves to Israel and I'm now praying for her to come to her fullness.

Like, there's something that's just, like, something's wrong with that picture. And I know that we can't... Well, hang on. So just a thought for you, all right? Okay. And then we got a break and we'll come back.

I want to talk to you and I'm going to get to some more calls. So here's my question. How about Ruth, who is a Moabite? And Moabites were enemies of Israel. But that was okay when she joined, right?

She converted. So we'll be right back and I'm going to answer your question. Then I got a question for you as well. Stan, Eddie, stay there.

I'm going to get to your calls, hopefully too. Thanks, friends, for joining us on the Line of Fire. So, Danielle, the short answer to your question is that Jewish people are those who are physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, who have preserved that identity, and those who have converted to Judaism over the years and joined the Jewish people. So it is both ethnic as well as religious. That's why you have someone like me, a Caucasian Jew. That's why one of my friends is an African-American Jew. That's why you have Indian Jews and Chinese Jews. As Jewish people, the descendants of Israel were scattered all around the world in judgment and exile for various reasons, many of them, most of them, over a period of time, lost connection to the Jewish people. Otherwise, we'd have over a billion Jews like you have over a billion Chinese and over a billion Indians, right? So, you know, you think that the antiquity of the Chinese people, the Indian people, the people of Israel, they're very similar, except you have, again, well over a billion Chinese, well over a billion Indians, and maybe 14 million Jews.

Why? Because most have been lost to history, either died out, killed, or intermarried out of Judaism, and then you just lose all contact and touch. What about those who married in? So, Caucasian converts to Judaism, African converts to Judaism, Chinese converts to Judaism. So, they marry in, that's why you have all these different ethnicities. But in the end, it's a really small number of people overall, and either they have that ethnic connection or that religious connection to the God of Israel. So, either way, you want to be praying for them as Jews. There have always been converts, you know, through history, and that's been understood. So, those are the ones that God would identify. Now, there may be more that he's tracked, you know, that were forced to convert in different ways but secretly maintain Jewish identity. That happened under Catholicism and Islam over the centuries. So, there may be others that God identifies as Jews, but those are the ones that you want to be praying for. And again, you realize, boy, it's such a small number overall compared to what it would have been if it was just like any other people group. And if God recognizes them, in other words, he recognized a convert like Ruth, then you should have no problem with it.

Because there's nothing pristine and perfect about it anyway, you know what I'm saying? You've got atheist Jews, you've got the whole mix. Yeah, but wouldn't you find it offensive, though, to have somebody, let's just go with Karen, just because it's so, you know, whatever, neutral. You know, wouldn't you find it offensive, though, that Karen, who converts the religion to Judaism, you know, and I mean, she grew up Baptist, blah, blah, blah, but now she's a Jew for the last two years, and now she's speaking on behalf of, like, the Holocaust happened to our people, and now she's speaking on behalf of Jews, and I'm just like... Yeah, well, here's the deal. You've got to ignore that 99.9% of the major commentary about the Holocaust, about Hamas terrorism, about anti-Semitism worldwide today is not coming from someone who's a recent convert. They don't have standing.

They don't have status. When you're reading the op-eds, like a New York Times op-ed from my friend Rabbi Shmueli about worldwide anti-Semitism, those are the ones that are speaking up. So just don't worry about the others.

Now, here's the other thing. Ultimately, being a Jew is not an easy thing. Here, just like being an Arab in America, right, that's not a minority that gets a lot of attention in good ways, and then you're blamed for what Hamas does, et cetera. So it's not like, hey, I think this will be a cool thing to do, to say I'm an Arab.

Not in America. If you're a Jew living in Iran, that's not like, hey, cool, I'm a Jew here. So that's why if you wanted to convert to Orthodox Judaism, you will be dissuaded from it. You will be discouraged from it. You have to really demonstrate that you're serious, and you're going to be asked, do you realize there's suffering involved with this? So remember the same Karen under the Nazis would have been slaughtered as a Jew. So just don't be distracted by that.

Focus on the vast majority where that's not the case, and pray that blinders would be removed. Hey, super quick, I wish I had more time for this. When I recounted history, and here you are listening as an Israeli Arab living in America, how did you feel about my recounting of it? You know, I was listening, and it was really interesting, because I noticed you were very neutral on both sides, and I really appreciated that.

Because one of the things that I hear a lot are a lot of Christians bashing on the Arabs, and I'm just like, they're not all bad, there are some that are terrorists, it's like not all Americans are BLM and Antifa people, you know? And so I really appreciated that you remain neutral, and I did write down the documentary that you were talking about, about Palestine Betrayed, or what have you. Yes, right, so there was the book, Palestine Betrayed by Ephraim Karsh, the book, and then the video, Hope in the Holy Land. So hopeintheholyland.com. Hope in the Holy Land, yeah.

And I did write that down. Good. So tell you what, Danielle, I mean, obviously, you understand, I believe God brought the Jewish people back to the land, and I stand with Israel, however, absolutely, there are two sides.

And absolutely, we don't want to demonize all Arabs, Palestinians by any means, or exonerate everything Israel does. Danielle, once you watch the video, hopeintheholyland.com, that documentary, and or read the book, Palestine Betrayed, give us a call back, and give me an update on what you're thinking after if you're going through those. Okay, I appreciate that. Thank you, Stan, so much for holding in Quebec, Canada.

Welcome to the line of fire. How are you doing? Doing well, thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. I wanted to ask you a question about, because it's very interesting, I just heard you say Ruf being gathered, or being joined to the people of Israel, as comparable to a person joining Judaism. What do you think about the ten tribes who are not yet gathered, as per Hosea 3.5, where God said that the children of Israel will be gathered also? So how would you, what is your opinion about also, because you speak about Judah, or the Jews, and the state of Israel being a Jewish state. What about the ten tribes?

What is your position on that? So, Stan, number one, some of the ten tribes exiled to Assyria and other parts of the world were wiped out, lost to history, no longer exist. I don't mean whole tribes, but people that were ancient Israelites have been lost to history entirely. Many others joined Judah.

We read about it, if you just read through Israel's history in Kings and Chronicles, or in some of the prophetic books, that you had people from the north who fled to the south. So, in the kingdom of Judah, you had all the twelve tribes represented. Paul references the twelve tribes in Acts. Jacob, James, in the first chapter, talking about Jewish believers, speaks of the twelve tribes. The Judean people, which then became known as the Jewish people, they represent all twelve tribes. So, among Jews today are descendants of all twelve tribes. And as God has brought the Jewish people back to the land and restored the modern state of Israel, they are synonymous. That being said, sir, it would not surprise me that there are still remnants of the descendants of Israel scattered in different nations that God knows. There's increasing awareness of this in parts of Africa and things like that, and in some cases DNA confirmation, like the Lemba people, and they've been identified as some of them even having priestly descent. So, there could be others known to God, fragments here and there, that God will one day restore to the land or is in the process of restoring.

Is there going to be something? Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah, quickly, just thank you for your clarification. How would you, once you consider the prophecy of Jacob to Ephraim, saying that his descendants will be the fulfillment or the gathering of all Gentiles, the nations, and compared with Psalms 87 verses 3 and 4, which says the city of God, Israel, is not a physical establishment, but a spiritual one, saying that the Ethiopian, the Babylonian, are all born within this city. Right. So, the real city of God is from Israel, so I see you focus a lot on the earthly Israel.

Yeah, well, let me tell you why. Because Scripture does stand hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times. It focuses on the physical city. The Psalms focus on the physical city. Jesus is coming back to the physical city. Isaiah 2 tells us all nations will come streaming to the physical city.

And on and on and on, passage after passage after passage. So you have one verse or two verses that speak of Zion in a metaphorical, spiritual sense and says that everyone will say, I'm born there. So in a metaphorical, spiritual sense, that's the case, but I'm going to keep my focus regardless and I'd encourage you to do the same thing, to keep your focus on what Scripture speaks. So the Gentiles are not Israel.

Read Romans 11 over and over and over again. Paul says, I'm writing to you Gentiles. And as much as I'm the apostle to the Gentiles, I want to make my people Israel envious. I'm encouraging you Gentiles to make Israel envious. So the Gentiles are not Israel. Israel has the Gentiles. And it's Ephraim, it doesn't say it'll be the fullness of all the nations, but it'll be a fullness of nations. In other words, this grew into millions of people.

This child or grandchild of Jacob ends up growing into all the tribes together, millions of people. Ephraim is also synonymous with Israel as a whole. But I do not believe a theology that the church is Israel or that Gentile Christians are Israel or that that's what any of these prophecies are saying. So do what God's Word does. Get the emphasis where the Word of God does, and look at Isaiah 62. We are to pray for the city of Jerusalem, the physical city of Jerusalem, that God will make it the praise of all the earth, and he'll do that through the Jewish people turning to the Messiah. Hey, Stan, thank you so much for your questions. And may the Lord's richest blessing be on each of you. Another program powered by the Truth Network.