Sid: My guest by way of telephone, Dr. Michael Brown is Red Hot for the Messiah. The reason I’m interviewing him are two reasons, number one, God wants him on right now and wants you, this is a Devine appointment for you. Number two, we have just come out with a new addition of my book that God told me to write many years ago literally God came to me in a dream and He said, “More Jewish people would come to know him through this book than anything I had ever done.” Today the book is in over a half a dozen languages, over 850,000 in print, more as we speak being distributed in multiple countries. One of the top books in Hebrew being distributed in Israel, this is God’s time to reach Jewish people. And the church is more in enamored with Jewish roots and more enamored with Rabbi’s in fact I was talking to Dr. Michael Brown and his chapter in this book and he actually deals with what we’ll be discussing today. But Mike we’ve been friends for a long time and I have to tell you, I watch on Christian TV Orthodox Rabbi’s and the hosts of these Christian TV shows say this is my Rabbi. How could an Orthodox Rabbi be a Rabbi for a Jewish believer in Jesus? It’s mischugah. That a Hebrew word for crazy, why are we so enamored with the Judaism rather than the Jewish people in the scriptures?
Michael: You know Sid it really is a very dangerous trend and tendency. On the one hand in times past in church history there was terrible Anti-Semitism there was Jew hatred in the name of Jesus, there was the rejection of anything Jewish by many that called themselves followers of Jesus. Well the pendulum swung now right across the middle all the way to the other extreme side where there is almost veneration for Jewish tradition. There is this fascination, Sid a word that God gave me back in 1984 about the pull over of rabbinic Judaism is simply this, that the whole Jewish temptation is in the soul realm, it will fascinate, stimulate, complicate, suffocate, so be on your guard. I remember we talked about that…
Sid: But let me add one more thing, where as that is true it is on the soul realm, there is a religious spirit connected with it also.
Michael: Oh, there absolutely is and what happens is instead of Yeshua being preeminent instead of Jesus being the central focus, instead of lifting Him up and living in the Spirit being central, it’s Jewishness that becomes central. Its Jewish roots and Jewish background, but the problem with that is that it goes beyond recovering the Jewish roots of the faith in a legitimate way and what happens is that it becomes a fascination with Rabbinic tradition. And Sid Rabbinic tradition by in large has a different origin. I believe Rabbinic Judaism is the greatest and most beautiful religion ever made by man, but it’s different than the Biblical faith. It is and the traditions that have developed through the centuries have been developed by those that by in large were the ones that rejected Yeshua or that ignored Yeshua when He came and have built on a different foundation, it really is a very different religion.
Sid: For those that this is brand new to, give us a few facts about this to establish what you are saying.
Michael: Okay, we all know that if you just read the Hebrew Scriptures what Christians call the Old Testament there’s certain questions okay, you had death penalty for things back then and how does that apply now? So followers of Yeshua through the New Covenant see that He brought about certain changes that He said, “Okay let me bring to fulfillment what’s written and take it to another level.” Well, what do Rabbinic Jews do? How come they don’t practice the death penalty for say, breaking the Sabbath? How come they are not stoning rebellious thirteen and fourteen year olds? Well, traditional Jews believe this, God gave Moses a written law on Mount Sinai and that’s the five books of Moses that we have, God gave Moses a written law on Mount Sinai, but God also gave Moses a oral law, and unwritten law which Moses then passed on to Joshua, Joshua to the elders and the elders to the prophets, etcetera and it continues to be passed down through the Rabbinic traditions and the rabbinic study to this very day. And what happens is that according to a Rabbinic Jew you cannot understand the written scriptures, you cannot understand the Word of God without the oral traditions and if the oral traditions interpret the written word differently than that’s how you have to interpret it. Doesn’t matter if the slant is completely contrary to the clear grammatical meaning of the written text, no the rabbinic authority say that it is; it is. And if you remember after Jesus finishes teaching on the Sermon on the Mount; the crowds were amazed because he taught with authority not like one of the religious leaders. In other words, he didn’t say I heard this from so and so, who heard this from so and so who heard it from so and so and went all the way back to Moses. No, He said, “I tell you, I tell you,” and He said it with Devine authority; there is a contrast in authority in Spirit and attitude and even in terms of how we interpret the text. And if we are going to go the way of rabbinic tradition we’ve got to go all the way, which means to submitting to the rabbinic authorities and they will tell you that Jesus, Yeshua is not the Messiah.
Sid: Mike, there is a quote in your book, I guess it comes from the Talmud that literally gives authority to the Rabbi’s on earth over the Bible, over God. Can you quote that to me?
Michael: Surely, there’s a famous account in the Talmud where there is a dispute between one of the Rabbi’s, Rabbi Eliezer and the other Rabbis. He brings all these miraculous proofs to back up his decision and the other rabbis say we don’t rely on miracles. Finally a voice from heaven says, “The law is according to Him.” And then another rabbi quotes the words, “Well, it’s not in heaven and they deduce from that also taking Exodus 23:2 the last words of it and completely twisting it on its head, giving the opposite meaning that the majority rules. In other words the majority of the Rabbi’s say this is the interpretation then this is the interpretation. It would just be like this, the Supreme Court of America may pass an unrighteous law, but that becomes the law of the land. That is one thing on human terms, but you cannot now overthrow God and His Word based on the majority rule. Throughout our history the majority rule has often been wrong in Jewish History and typical history and yet it’s laid out plainly in the Talmud that it’s no longer in heaven that you follow the majority where as the texts is actually saying, “Don’t follow the majority to do wrong.” The words “Follow the majority” are pulled out of context and quoted to actually overthrow the voice of God. And in the Talmud in the account that God laughs and sons my sons have defeated me. I don’t think that it’s something to laugh at.
Sid: Wasn’t what we know as Rabbinical Judaism a great deal of it shaped to put a picket fence around Jewish people so we would not know that Jesus is our Messiah?
Michael: Well, basically if you just think of two tracks that are next to each other and then they start going in different directions. Well the directions are so separate that Jesus doesn’t even come into play anymore; in other words, when people say, “Well, why don’t more religious Jews believe in Jesus?” Well, it is not an option, He’s not studied, He’s not considered, there is an entirely different system that’s been built outside of Him away from Him. “What about the prophetic authority of the Messiah?” No, we have the traditions. What about the miracles of the Messiah? No, we have the traditions. What about the plain sense of the Word of God? No, we have our traditions and you see that these tracks are in different directions and there is no way to cross from one way to the other without breaking free from the binding rabbinic traditions.
Sid: You know, I see so many things going on because this is the set time to favor Zion, God is once again extending His mercy on Jewish people. And the people that He has created to share the good news with Jewish people are Gentile Christians because, Roman’s 11:11 says “Salvation has come to the Gentile to provoke the Jew to jealousy.” And that’s why I believe Satan is throwing all these things down, you know in the path of Christians, especially being more enamored with Jewish roots then sharing the Messiah with Jewish people. But this is again why this book is out…Read it, you will be fascinated with this and as a matter of fact if you are not a believer in Jesus and you are not Jewish there is enough information in this book that it will kind of sneak up on you, it will make you a believer in Jesus. And then if you are Jewish everything is there, and if you are Christian you’ll begin to understand Jewish people. This is the time to understand Jewish people; we have Jewish people from an Orthodox background to Jewish people from atheistic background Israeli’s, Jewish people from other countries, a holocaust survivor, a multi-millionaire, a PHD, a concert pianist. Mike one fact why Jesus is the Jewish Messiah that comes to mind.
Michael: Oh, one fact out of 10,000 facts, there was certain things that the Messiah had to do before the second temple was destroyed in the year ’70; namely put an end to sin and bring the glory of God to the temple; there bringing everlasting attainment to sin, establishing righteousness and bring the glory of God to that temple. Messiah did it, Jesus did it before the temple was destroyed in the year ’70; there is no other possibility there is no other candidate of anyone else that can do it after that. Either He’s the Messiah or we have no Messiah.
Sid: You know, you wrote your PHD on healing and on especially Isaiah 53; one fact about healing from Isaiah 53 that you found out by working on your PHD.
Michael: Well, that the prophets had the holistic view of healing; it was spirit, soul, body and that through the work of the Messiah it was a havrahtoe narpa lanu, and at the cost of His wounds there was healing for us, healing of the whole person, inside, outside, by the wounds of the Messiah. Its Holistic it wasn’t just physical, it wasn’t just spiritual it’s a deep provision that the prophets had; the whole man, the wholly healed; that’s what the Messiah came to bring.
Sid: Okay, you have heard Dr. Michael Brown, he is one of ten people in this book, Jewish people from every walk of life that have come to the conclusion that Jesus in fact is our Jewish Messiah. Now one of the Jewish people in this book is myself and I was involved deeply in the New Age and God is so gracious, He revealed Himself to me an in a spectacular fashion. And I believe God is revealing Himself to Jewish people in a spectacular fashion all over the world. And all over the world this book is in demand, but in the United States, it’s just getting started. Why? This is God’s moment of mercy on Jewish people in the United States if you just read the headlines of the newspaper, you see the world is getting more and more anti-Semitic, the world is getting just like Zachariah prophesize all nations will turn against Jerusalem to battle in the last days. The only hope a Jewish person has, the only hope the church has, the only hope for the return of Jesus. Jesus said, I will not return until the Jewish people say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”
