Sid: We want everyone everywhere to be on God’s side of the fence. You say “Well if someone is a real Christian they’ll be on God’s side of the fence.” Not necessarily if you study history. The only way to be on God’s side of the fence is not doing what you feel, not doing what you sense, if it’s in contradiction to the pure written word of God. If I know anything I know Genesis 12:3 is still true today, and God says, and He’s not a man that He should lie. “I will bless those who bless the Jewish people, I will curse those who curse them.” I have someone on the telephone that knows from firsthand experience, his name is Lance Lambert. He has lived in Israel since 1973, but he’s from Great Britain. He recognizes Genesis 12:3 is still in effect today, but Lance where I would like to go today is there’s a group called Hezbollah. Tell who they, where they are, and what they’re up to.

Lance: They are a Shiite, which is one of the denominations of Islam, one of the major denominations of Islam. A Shiite militia in Lebanon they have been funded and armed by Iran though Syria. Syria has used them as a surrogate force both in Lebanon and against Israel.

Sid: What do you believe they’re going to be up to? What is Syria pushing them to do from Lebanon?

Lance: Well I think Syria has got some serious problems at present because of the assassination of Rafic Hariri the Prime Minister of Lebanon. Now that the United Nations investigative team has discovered that basically it goes right to the very top in Syria, right up to the President Assad’s brother and brother in law. I think that means they’re in a very difficult position. Nevertheless they have been using his Hezbollah to destabilize Lebanon in their favor, and also to try and destabilize Israel. Hezbollah has been arming and training Hamas and Al Jihad the two militias in Israel that are responsible for so many of the suicide bombings and much else. So you have a very serious problem and for many years I have felt, and there are others here in Israel who feel the same, that the trouble is going to come not from the east or from the south, but from the north from Lebanon. One of the reasons was that we… years ago in the 80’s, in the middle of the 80’s, someone got in touch with me from Australia and they had a farmer’s wife with them who had had a vision in the night. They said we know this lady she is a real prayer warrior and she’s very level headed. She took a bus it took her 3 hours she’s come into Sidney and now she’s sitting with us. We said “We’ll phone you and ask you,” that’s me they’re going to phone. What happened was she was going to bed and suddenly she saw everything on fire, mountains all on fire. Three times it happened and it quite terrified her, then she finally asked the Lord “What does this mean?” The Lord gave her a word that “The mountains of the north of Israel would be on fire, but not to fear because the Lord would save Israel.” Then went on to say “Kuwait will be on fire and the smoke will go up to heaven and cover the earth.” A whole number of other things about the nations all joining in and helping by either sending troops or money. Well it was extraordinary because in 1990 that’s exactly what happened when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and set on fire the oil wells which literally circled the earth with a thing which caused a difference in the winter we had. I mean it’s incredible but it’s true. Now the interesting thing is that the beginning of the prophecy and the end of the prophecy she got were not fulfilled.

Sid: Tell me what was not fulfilled.

Lance: What was not fulfilled was the mountains on the north of Israel would be on fire and there would be great carnage.

Sid: The mountains in the north of Israel is what territory?

Lance: Well that could be Lebanon, it could be Syria, and it could be northern Israel.

Sid: What do you think it will be?

Lance: Well I, my feeling, and we’ve felt it for some time, that one of these they’re going to open up and rain down, they have the largest number of rockets…

Sid: You’re talking about Hezbollah?

Lance: Hezbollah yes.

Sid: Okay.

Lance: The largest number and they have been trained by the Iranian revolutionary guard. Now the revolutionary guard of Iran are not to be laughed at they are clever, and very very intelligent. So it’s not going to be a hit and miss thing like we’ve known before with some of our Arab neighbors. So my feeling is one of these days they will open up; now whether Syria will do it now with all this interest focused on her over the assassination of Hariri I don’t know. They could do it to try and take away tension.

Sid: Lance let me ask you a question, have you ever studied from the Bible how much land God has promised, I mean we’re looking at dividing the land which is the opposite of what God wants. How much more than Israel currently has does God say we will have?

Lance: Well we have a problem only in the sense that two or three times the promise land lies between the sea, which is the Mediterranean and the Euphrates, and the River Nile. Now why we say River Nile is because in at least one of those instances the word Nahar is used for river, which is a flowing river, it can only mean the Nile. Whereas other times it is Nakhar which is the wadi of Egypt, which is actually in El-Arish in northern Sinai. What we know is at least the borders of the promised land go up at the very least to the river Zahrani in Lebanon. The rabbis have always felt that one of the wadi’s that goes from the Tigris down… is the border between Saudi Arabia and Jordan is the border of the promised land, and wadi El-Arish is the other border.

Sid: So before the Messiah comes do you think there’s any choice, not that there’ll be a two-state solution, but that Israel will have a lot more land?

Lance: It’s possible, entirely possible. Certainly when the Lord does come it will happen.

Sid: Okay Lance Lambert I do respect you prophetic sense. I want you to give us a last word as to what you see is going to be going on now in the near future in the Middle East.

Lance: I think we are in for an incredibly bumpy ride for the next year at least. Anything could happen, I’ve said it again and again, if we wake up one day it will never surprise me if we wake up one day to discover Iran has exploded a nuclear device. If that happens the whole situation in the Middle East will change literally overnight

Sid: Wait a second, what do you mean if? Of course this is going to happen they’re not going to stop.

Lance: No, no absolutely, and they’re playing amazing games with France, Germany and Britain over this, and of course the United States. It’s very interesting they seem… they must be near to a breakthrough because they’re literally fighting for months as it were of time.

Sid: It looks to me like that whole Middle East could be a powder cake very shortly, but again the repercussion on America… I’m concerned about the Middle East, I’m concerned about Israel, but the repercussion on America… you know if America becomes third world how in the world are we going to get the gospel out like we have?

Lance: Absolutely right that’s what I’ve said all along. The United States is the last Bastian of Biblical principal and truth.

Sid: Listen Mishpochah we’re out of time.

Sid: I’m going to tell you something, by the time you finish listening to the interview I’m doing with Paul McGuire, you probably seen Paul he’s been a guest many times on the Fox news network.  He’s been on the History Channel, you’ve probably seen him on programs like O’Reilly as a guest commentator.  And Paul on yesterday’s broadcast you started to say something that God has shown you that I believe is also true. I’m going to have you share that again. Before you do that I want to establish the credibility that God has used you for prophetic warnings in the past of things that have come true.  Tell me a few.

Paul: Sid what happens is the Holy Spirit will push me into an area of research or to research about events or a group or a name.  And many times you know this won’t mean anything to me intellectually. I research credible sources I’m very skeptical and I research mainstream credible sources.  About a year before 911 I publicly stated and I made comments to the affect that there was a group called Al Qaeda that there was a terror attack on the Twin Trade Towers that I discussed Saddam Hussein and invasion of Iraq. I talked about weapons of mass destruction and I talked about all of the things that the intelligence community after 911 said that they weren’t up to speed on.  And I couldn’t figure out how they weren’t up to speed on it when the Lord revealed to me that all of these things were going to happen.

Sid: Just out of curiosity, how did the Lord reveal that to you?

Paul:  The primary way the Lord reveals things to me is He does it twofold; number one He directs me to do thorough research and then He gives me supernatural revelation either through dreams, through pictures, or an inner sense of knowing.

Sid: For instance in 1994 where you were living there was something called “The North Ridge Earthquake” and your whole neighborhood was devastated and nothing happened to your home or your property, why?

Paul: Well, that year was a key year for me because I had written some books on Bible prophecy, but I must admit to you Sid I had kind of a cynical attitude towards prophecy even though I’d write about it.  So when there was this ear splitting noise at 4:00 AM in the morning it sounded like a locomotive train smashed through the living room of our house.  And my wife grabs our three babies at one time like the bionic woman, we go out with all the lights out in the neighborhood.  All my neighbors come to my driveway because we’re at the end of the cul-de-sac and in the dark all my neighbors, many of them Jewish and nonbelievers they knew that I was an author and for some strange reason they kept asking me the question “Are these the signs of the times that Jesus talked about and is this the end of the world.”  And I must have been asked that question a hundred times in the month or two that followed the North Ridge Earthquake.  And God used that earthquake to radically change my viewpoint on Bible prophesy. From that moment forward it was like a veil was taken from my eyes and it was like I woke up from a dream and I realized that we really were living in the last days. So I’ve devoted my life to warning people, and preparing people, and educating people about the fact that we are in the last days.

Sid: Now did it kind of blow you out of the water when God started revealing to you things and then they would start happening like “The Iranian Sleeper Cells in the US, the anthrax, the biological chemical nuclear weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein, Iraq” I mean these were all going on Al Qaeda’s first attack, the second attack on the world.  I mean when you knew these things before they happen what did you think?

Paul:  I thought that they were true because the inner sense of the Lord speaking to me was so powerful and so overwhelming that there was no real doubt. And I’ll give you another example, that after the 911 event happened there was a long period of time it was like having night vision or some kind of radar where I could literally sense the presence of terrorist cells located not specifically but in general regions of the United States.  It was as if I could feel their presence; and the Lord said “Now you need to pray about it.”  See that’s a revelation supernaturally and that’s the way the Lord has been dealing with me. There’s an even coming soon and when I say soon I can’t give you an exact period of time, but I believe with all my heart the Lord has quickened me by the power of His Holy Spirit like a watchman; I’m commanded when I see the danger I’ve had to blow the shofar and warn the people of God.  There is a cataclysmic event a crisis event that is soon about that’s going to happen to America soon that will shake this nation to it’s very core and people are going to be given a choice and that choice will be to either follow God and the principals of God and look to God as their source and their protector and deliverer, or to make the false choice which is to look to man to be god and government to be god.  Now if the people in the United States including the church makes the false choice to look to government or man to be god they will be worshiping the spirit of anti-Christ and there are going to pay a severe penalty.

Sid: Now I know God hasn’t shown you what the cataclysmic thing would be but use your sanctified imagination and give me an example of what it might be.

Paul:  It may be multiple nuclear bombs being detonated in major cities simultaneously.

Sid: We’ve heard about those suitcase bombs that we can’t find; so it would be something like that?

Paul:  It could be an economic collapse, but it would happen suddenly like you wake up in the morning and all the banks are closed.  It could be an EMP attack which knocks out our power grid and communications, or it could be a nuclear missile or several nuclear missiles fired perhaps accidentally from another nation like Russia or North Korea or whatever and everybody thinks it’s not going to get through and it does get through and suddenly this nuclear missile pierces the atmosphere and it wipes out a major US city with a mushroom cloud.

Sid: Just briefly I believe that what you’re saying is from God what can people do to prepare?

Paul:  Well, the Lord has given me the sense of urgency not to scare people so my goal is not to frighten people, my goal is to… the Lord told me talk about this in the DVD your offering and the book your are offering as a prophetic warning so that people would turn back to God and people would begin to pray and people especially Christians.  The Bible says as you know “Judgment begins in the House of the Lord.”  And people are always pointing to people who are not believers and the sins of nonbelievers as the reason for God’s judgment.  But the Lord has showed me the primary reason for His judgment will not be because of the sins of nonbelievers it will be because of the sin of the church.  Therefore, if we repent, if we seek the face of God the Lord has told me specifically and He gave me a very powerful vision; the most powerful vision in my entire life.  “If we will repent the Lord will grant us a temporary reprieve and He will drive back the powers of darkness.  How long that will occur I don’t know but God told me He will pour out grace instead of judgment if we will seek His face.

Sid:  You know I’ve been studying Jeremiah and there was a point of no return in Jeremiah meaning the decision was made and your saying that we haven’t reached that point in America in your opinion, or in God’s opinion more important?

Paul:  I believe we’re dancing right on the edge we’re right on the threshold of crossing over that terrible line when there will be no going back.

Sid: So the warning, your giving people is not necessarily unless God tells him to store up guns and food and gold and silver. But store up on the Holy Spirit, is that what you’re saying?

Paul: Absolutely, and I believe the Lord has given us one last brief window of opportunity to seek His face and repent. If that repentance is genuine and if we seek His face in Spirit and truth we will see the supernatural power of God released on America with such force it will be a third grade awakening.

Sid: It kind of sounds like young guy that what was that the Lambs Club and the fire of God came on Him.  Is that what you’re expecting the fire of God to come on those that are seeking God at this point?

Paul:  Yes, July 4^th of this past year my wife and I were having a Bible study and we were reminiscing, we’d been married over 35 years and we were dating in Manhattan about 35 years ago and the great July 4^th celebration where ships from around the world gathered. We were talking about that on July 4^th, then I felt lead to pray with her for America so very calmly I began to intercede for America and I repented of my own sins and then I interceded and repented of the sins of the church. Immediately after the repentance I was set on fire by the power of God in a way that I have never experienced before. And I calmly told my wife while I was praying I looked at my fingers my 5 fingers and they were burning, they were burning hot. In fact, they were burning so hot I couldn’t understand why I was not in pain. But it was a supernatural burning.  And then I could feel every cell in my body burning with fire in my entire being burning with fire.  And I was relating this to my wife and I said to my wife; I’m healed I felt the power of God supernaturally pour through me and I felt distinctly that I was miraculously healed.  I cannot tell you precisely what disease I was healed of ….

Sid: But I can tell you this we’re out of time right now, but Paul has been raised up by God to so expose the master plan and the key players of those involved with the mark of the beast and the microchip. He has spent the last 30 years, he’s probably the most expert in the natural on the microchip and where it is right now.

Sid: Have I got good news for you I have Pastor Henry Wright on the telephone and this is we’re coming to the home stretch the second week talking about his updated expanded book called “A More Excellent Way.” It’s a manual it really is on the spiritual roots of disease and literally when you can find the root of your disease and you can get rid of it through prayer and through repentance.  Then healing comes; it’s that simple.  And the longer that Henry has been in this the more truth and the more understanding and the more wisdom that he has picked up.  But before we went on the air and I have to just make this statement that if a doctor tells you to take a particular medicine because you have a life threatening type of situation you better take that medicine.  But there’s a flipside of the coin and Henry you were talking to me about this and I have on the phone Pastor Henry Wright Pastor of Pleasant Valley Church in Thomaston, Georgia.  Henry you were saying there is the flipside and the overuse of drugs; explain.

Henry:  Well the flipside is very important and again as important that your audience understands that as you mentioned do not stop taking your drugs because you hear this conversation.  It’s time to now go back and find out why are we taking the drug; I think probably that would be the big part of this conversation.  Let me give you some statistics and I’ll give you something that Dr. Julian Whitaker has said in his writing and also a program by Oprah Winfrey earlier this year that has the same statistics that I do in Be In Health.  Let’s just talk about FDA approved drugs; the statistics that we have are very accurate is that the number 3 killer of people in America of all the top 10 on the list of killers of people in America, the number 3 is death from properly prescribed and administered FDA approved drugs. That does not include the 2 million that are permanently disabled and damaged by FDA approved drugs.  What makes this statistic incredible is that death from illegal drugs including marijuana, heroin, cocaine and all the rest of them put together does not even make the top 10 of the statistical observation.  That as Dr. Julian Whitaker has said in his writings, I guess the war on drugs needs to be immediately redefined because we are a people that is extremely filled with fear of disease, dear of dying and fear of death.  Now in this understanding of this it’s important to understand that with drugs comes the side effects of a drug.  And the side of effects of a drug is another disease; now let’s go to the Oprah Winfrey said and this is astounding to me I mean I got the statistics but I’d never had looked at this way but she graphically brought it into focus. As she began to challenge America to wake up “Why are we becoming a drug nation, a drugged nation?”  And by the way that includes believers and Christians we’re no different or in better shape than the world when it comes to drugs and disease and all these problems.  Oprah said this Sid that “If you had a Jumbo 747 jet liner loaded with an average of 350 people aboard that crashed in America and everybody aboard lost their life in that day it happened the number of people dying actually dying from the side effects of properly prescribed and administered FDA approved drugs is equivalent to one of these Jumbo 747’s crashing every single day of the year in America;” every single day.  If that happened in aviation there would be a national outcry but there’s not one person well, maybe a few of us that are even raising an eyebrow to what’s happening in America.

Sid: Now why is this?

Henry:  Because well first of all if God isn’t answering our prayer the doctor don’t have any solution for incurable disease and they don’t all that we have going for us is disease management.  What they call health care is really a subtle way of bewitching you in your thinking because it’s really not health care at all it is disease management.  And everything that’s going in America right now it’s not the cure of disease my friend, it is disease management.  And in the journal of American Medicine it says “The best that American’s have coming in the next 100 years in health and science are miracle drugs, more drugs, miracle drugs and genetic engineering.  And so I think I guess what I’d like to say today is that behind many of the diseases that we deal with in “Be in Health” that require the use of a drug.  High blood pressure for example, or asthma for example, or any of these other diseases that utilize beta-blockers and beta enhancers to kick the imbalance of the sympathetic nervous system back into balance is not solving the problem.  If for example in the case of high blood pressure which we talked about last week if hypertension or high blood pressure is a result of a person worrying about the future, that is fear anxiety distress issue and if that’s able to cause a cell membrane a semi-rigid cardiovascular system you can give the person a drug which is a beta-blocker and that will keep them going and that will take care of the high blood pressure.  But it hasn’t delivered them or fixed them from the worry or the fear.  Another is bound by two problems they’ve got the same worry now they got the drug with all of the side effects.  I think that’s why Paul in Galatians Chapter 5 Sid, if you look up in Galatians Chapter 5 in the King James version I think the NIV calls it the same thing sorcery or witchcraft. And look up in the Strong’s concordance the word witchcraft it literally says “The pharmacist, pharmaceutical, pharmaceutical drugs, druggist.  And in here Paul emphatically it’s not illegal drugs that’s found over in the same verse under the term drunkenness.  So when you go over Galatians Chapter 5 you find drunkenness that would be alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, heroin and all the rest of that illegal drugs.  But the word witchcraft for sorcery is pharmaceutical drugs.  Now Paul calls it a work of the flesh right in with adultery and all the rest of it. Why?  Because even in Paul’s time, even without the lack of scientific investigation that we have today Paul knew that taking a drug would not get you sanctified it would not deal with the root issue. And what Paul was saying you need find out what’s wrong in your life, get your spirituality straightened out let God become part of your life, get your mind renewed, get that sin out your life and then your body will come back into balance and you won’t need these drugs to manage you.  And that is as a pastor I am concerned but because it’s time to wakeup America. It’s time to wakeup church; unless we’re just going to go from generation to generation of being bewitched.  It’s time to go back to God and get our lives straightened out so that we will not need these drugs that we happen to take today and that’s a more excellent way.

Sid: And that’s where you got your title from, there is a more excellent way than…

Henry:  Absolutely.

Sid: Then managing your diseases. But don’t people do that also with things like anger, and addictions they manage it rather than having freedom?

Henry:  Well, it’s just like in the Psychiatric Journals there’s a disease Americans have called social phobia and 10 million Americans have social phobia and that is fear of man.  You know…

Sid: People that are afraid of standing up in front of a group for example.

Henry:  There are people that are afraid of people and you know what the medical community gives the person who has social phobia the drug Paxil which is an anti-anxiety drug.  Now does the drug deliver you from the fear of man? See what the Bible says “Fear not what man can do unto you but put your trust in the Lord.”  Why would we be afraid of other humans? Boy that is really a good question, and why are we more afraid of people then we are God?

Sid: Hmm.

Henry:  You see?  We are because we don’t see God with our physical eyes right now so He seems to be a long ways away. But that person down the street that doesn’t like you you can see them every day and you’re afraid of them.  Well, see that’s sin that opens up the door for all kinds of problems in our life that produces disease.  So I guess what I’m saying in this subject here is that it’s time to rethink what we’re doing in Be in Health Global as we begin to help people understand their spirituality and their thoughts.  We want to bring people back to the peace of God.  You don’t need an anxiety drug you just might need deliverance from fear.  And you know what you don’t need a bunch of pills church, you just need one. The gos-pill, that’s what we need.

Sid: Henry how many diseases have you found the spiritual roots for?

Henry:  We are researching over 700 but it becomes easier than you could imagine because in researching the specific roots behind disease we actually finding disease classes.  For example gastrointestinal diseases follow a certain pathway of spirituality, cardiovascular diseases fall another networking of spirituality, autoimmune diseases follow another.  So we’re following what causes the disease. Actually the word disease is a spin off from the word “dis ease” and the “dis ease” of our life begins in our spirituality.  If our spirituality is incorrect then our long term memory or our psyche or our psychology will be wrong. That’s why the word of God comes to separate the soul from the spirit that we can get God’s mind, what God has said about our life.  If it says in 2 Timothy 1:7 that “God has not given us a spirit of fear but power, love and of sound mind” then why in the world would we want to be following something that’s not from God. If God is not from God, then where in the world is it from?  And why should it be part of our lives.

Sid: You know according to information I’ve read that you’ve made available there is an epidemic of insanity in America.

Henry:  Oh gosh, I was shocked when I read the statistics the other day; actually the first part of this year I was reading some research and as you know we do a lot of research here. They did a survey people that do these surveys and investigation.  I think it was World Health Organization if I’m not mistaken were researching nations on this planet and their susceptibility to mental disease.  Shockingly enough the nation that has the highest percentage of mental disorder and are on psychiatric drugs and counseling…

Sid: It’s the United States we’re out of time…

Sid: My guest is red hot for the Messiah his name is Dr. Michael Brown. He’s a Jewish believer in Jesus, and when I say he’s on fire for the Lord, he is on fire for the Lord. He is also president of the Fire School of Ministry in Concord, North Carolina right outside of Charlotte, North Carolina. He is a Semitic language scholar; he has PhD in near eastern languages and literatures from New York University. Recently we conducted a debate between one of the best known traditional rabbis in America, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. I have a list of his credentials and it would take the whole show just to read all of these credentials. The debate was “Who is Jesus?” It was absolutely high adventure; very few Christians have ever heard rabbinic arguments. I know that my wife watched the debate and she was so excited. Now there was one question that she didn’t quite get, and it had to do… we were discussing Mike Brown about the need for blood sacrifices. The rabbis said “No” and his example was Noah. Would you comment on that?

Michael: Well the traditional Jewish position would be that blood sacrifices have value and they’re important, but God’s primary way of dealing with the human race has been through repentance. I believe he uses an example of the people of Jonah was one example. When Jonah went to preach to the people of Nineveh that they repented and God accepted their repentance and there was no sacrifices offered etcetera. If you look at someone that would have lived before the temple was established, Shmuley’s point would have been “How are they righteous? They weren’t righteous through blood sacrifices, they were righteous through repentance.” My argument of course is “Yes repentance has always been foundational, but that God also requires a penalty for sin and that His way of pointing to the Messiah and how the innocent would suffer for the guilty was to send His Son in a prefigured way.” How so in the animal sacrifice system? So the sacrificial system of Israel, which was a massively important part of the Torah, was constantly prefiguring substitution, substitution; innocent for the guilty, the requirement of blood. Shmuley of course would argue that the blood sacrifice were for unintentional sins primarily, and most of them were, but there were specific sacrifices for guilty sins where you knew it and it was intentional. There was specific sacrifices offered on the Day of Atonement that covered the entire guilt of the entire nation. So blood sacrifices played an important role, traditional Judaism of course has emphasized with the absence of the temple, and the absence of sacrifices “No we don’t need those we have repentance, we have prayer, we have charity and that’s sufficient although one day it will be great to have the temple standing with the sacrifices offered again, but it’s not necessary in the meantime.” Of course there answers for each of these objections, but that’s a standard one “We don’t need the blood” is a big Jewish objection.

Sid: Of course that’s one of the major issues of the entire scriptures because without the shedding of blood there is NO atonement for sin. In this debate to help our listeners really understand this tell me what is traditional Judaism today? What is rabbinic Judaism today and how close is it to the scriptures?

Michael: Okay. Traditional Judaism is based on the Bible plus rabbinic traditions. The simplest way to say it, one scholar put it like this “The Catholic religion is no more the religion of the New Testament, than traditional Judaism is the religion of the Old Testament.” Meaning if you talk to a Catholic and say “Why do you do this, and this, and this…” they have some scripture support, but then they say “This is done by the authority of the church.” If you’re a Catholic you believe that has been passed on through each generation, and that the Pope carries the same authority as Peter. Well the same way if you’re a traditional Jew, you believe yes God gave us the scriptures, but the scriptures as given are unintelligible. In other words, it says “Don’t work on the Sabbath if you work on the Sabbath you’ll be put to death,” but it doesn’t explain in detail what it means to work, and so with other commandments. They believe, traditional Jews believe, on Mt. Sinai God gave Moses an oral law to explain the written law. That oral law was then passed on to Joshua, from Joshua to the eldest, the eldest to the prophets, on and on, till you get to the days of Jesus. Then like Hillel and Shammai, and even then Gamaliel under whom Paul studied, and the authors of the Mishnah and the Talmud, and the Jewish law coach through the ages. The belief is the way that you understand what is written is by going to the rabbis, and the rabbis have a chain of tradition some of which is written, some of which is passed down orally that explains what the scriptures mean. On the one hand, there is much of the Bible in traditional Judaism, for example a religious Jew is reading through the 5 Books of Moses, the Torah, every year in the synagogues. A religious Jew is praying the Psalms and other portions of scripture in daily prayer 2 or 3 times a day. But most of what a religious Jew does is not found directly in scripture in terms of what he says when he gets up in the morning, how he prays, wearing a head covering, wearing other types of garments, the extensions of the dietary laws, etcetera… Some of these traditions actually contradict the spirit or the life of the word, a traditional Jew would say “That’s not the case,” but we can see clearly in the gospels that when Jesus had conflicts with the religious leaders it was generally over the traditions; some of those traditions Jesus said “You make void the word of God with your traditions” in Mark 7 and Matthew 15. So there’s certain things traditional Jews do in terms of keeping the Sabbath, and the Biblical calendar, and they’re more zealous for that than anyone in the world. On the hand, what they have done is added so many traditions and human commands, and if you don’t do it THAT WAY you’re considered not be a true follower of scripture.

Sid: Does God accept traditional Judaism as justification to go to heaven?

Michael: Oh no! God doesn’t accept any human system as traditional justification to go to heaven.

Sid: So it’s actually diabolical in that sense because they think they’re okay.

Michael: Any support we have aside from falling into God’s hands and asking for mercy through the Messiah is a false support. No matter how beautiful, no matter how filled with wisdom, no matter how powerful the traditions, no matter how much good is there, ultimately any other system that gets us from trusting in Yeshua alone for salvation. I’m not saying we don’t need to repent, I’m not saying we don’t need to live holy lives, but I’m saying if the basis of our confidence is our religion, or our tradition, or our lifestyle, or our good works we will find ourselves terribly short on the day we stand before the Lord.

Sid: Alright, let me put the question this way, is traditional Judaism the religion of Moses and the prophets?

Michael: Absolutely not, without question, absolutely not.

Sid: Where did they deviate?

Michael: Historically the deviation seems to grow from a couple of hundred years before Yeshua, as the Pharisees began to rise up. In many ways an excellent movement striving for purity, but in other ways, once they began to develop their traditions, and once they began to say “If you do not follow our traditions you are not right with God.” That’s when the problems began to arise. Look I could tell a Jewish person, but I do keep the Sabbath, and they could say “If you don’t keep it according to our tradition you’re not keeping it.” I could “But I follow what is written literally in the Bible” and they could say “If you don’t follow our tradition you’re not right with God.” The dividing line comes when Yeshua comes into the world that’s where the decision has to go “Will we go with the fulfilling of the prophets and the miraculous, and the voice of God revealed through the Messiah the last and greatest national prophet to Israel? Or will we follow our traditions?” To the extent human traditions are followed to that extent you ultimately hit a dead end and you miss God.

Sid: Okay, if you had one shot a Jewish rabbi and could say one statement to him to get him to think what would it be?

Michael: One statement I would probably urge him to study the scriptures and to recognize the Messiah was supposed to come before the second temple was destroyed. The second temple was destroyed over 1900 years ago in the year 70 of this era. There is a clear prophetic witness pointing towards it in Haggai 2, and Malachi 3, and Daniel 9 when you weave those strands together. There’s even rabbinic tradition that indicates the Messiah was expected roughly 1800 years ago. In other words, a long time ago something should have happened and the scriptures indicating He was expected before the second temple was destroyed. What happened? The Talmudic tradition says He should have come 1800 years ago, but because of our sins we’ve missed it. I say He did come 2000 years ago as the prophets said He would, and because of our sins we missed Him. Therefore, we need to repent and turn back. God has kept His timetable faithfully without skipping a beat. God has laid out in scripture that the Messiah would first be rejected and misunderstood by the nation, and be a light to the Gentiles before He would be received by His people. Who else has done that? We began our debate with Shmuley making the point very well, he’s a tremendous speaker, and made the point very well that Jesus has brought the knowledge of God to hundreds of millions of people. [Laughing] He’s a Jew! If I said which Jew has brought knowledge of the God of Israel to hundreds of millions of people you’d say “Well it’s this Jew Jesus.” Who’s a better candidate for the Messiah than Him? Who else came and lived and died 2000 years ago, not to mention resurrection…

Sid: Listen I thought he was setting you up for both debates.