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He came from a home that was completely filled with idolatry and he discovered there was only one God…His actions and the way he behaved during his life would affect others, would affect the world. Therefore we would expect and we would anticipate that in fact ancient cultures would write about the teachings that Abraham taught. Going back roughly 1,600 years after Adam was created we have the worldwide Flood. Only eight people survived that deluge. We would therefore expect that long before the Torah is given that all cultures would record a Flood that affected the world, and in fact we do find that…So when we encounter ideas, monotheistic ideas or ideas of how to treat people, well you had Abraham spreading that so therefore these ideas filled the world. We had a Flood and therefore it is then recorded among the descendants of the survivors…Imagine if we only found in Jewish literature the record of a Flood and no other culture taught about a Flood, that would be problematic. It was like World War 2 and no one talked about it?…Certainly as you would expect there’s maybe a different spin on it, how meaningful it was. Torah is the word of God so therefore it is the most reliable record and in fact it is the most detailed record of that event.
Do not think in your heart that other religions do not produce spiritual feelings. If only Judaism produced life-changing experiences and no other faith did, you’d have no free will. Because only one faith; but Hindus, they’re transformed by their belief in Shiva and Krishna and all their gods. Christianity too, so make no mistake about it…I say this to the Christian listeners. Just use the same kind of critical thinking you’ve used to reject Roman Catholicism, Mormonism, the J Witnesses, use the same critical thinking for Christianity.
The firstborn nature of Israel is that we are the teachers, we are the kohanim, we are the priests of the world and that’s the language that’s used in Exodus as you would guess in chapter 19. That you get, oh chapter 19, why is that significant? Because that’s the incipit, that’s the introduction to the Ten Commandments. So the nation of Israel are a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Which brings us to our question, what does it mean to be God’s firstborn son, Israel? It’s in a sense in the way that parents who have a number of children, the firstborn child has unique responsibility. In some sense they represent the parents to the other children. They can raise the other children. Most importantly, most germane to our conversation, they instruct the younger children. So therefore that’s the role of the Jew. The role of the Jew is to be a light to the nations, the role of the Jew is to play the role of the bachur, of the firstborn. Not that we are the first nation chronologically to have ever existed but rather we play the role of the bachur in that we are, our role, our mandate is to provide instruction to the nations of the world. That’s what comes into view in the incipit of the Ten commandments. That’s what comes into view in Isaiah chapter 42:6, the nation of Israel is a covenant nation, a brit am and an ohr la’goyim, you will find the same exact language coming into view again in Isaiah but seven chapters later in Isaiah chapter 49:5-6.
The concept doesn’t make sense because as it turns out if the Nephilim were angels, the word malach (angels) is not in this chapter. If they were angels this would be the greatest injustice in human history because as it turns out the Flood did not affect angels. So stop with that. That means, wow! That would be like a sickest Bible in the world. Oh, angels rape women, well that’s so Zeusian, Zeus was you know, that’s all he did basically is running around with everybody else’s wife and looking for virgins to produce emperors of Rome. Or to produce Greek gods and Hercules and so on. If angels were the ones who were raping women (how crazy is that), well that means the Bible is a trash heap because that would mean that they went around raping women and they weren’t even punished for it. That means, angels weren’t affected by the Flood. So that would be insane, the whole purpose of Genesis 6 is to convey to us how depraved the world had become. How people have fallen into sin so it begins with what we’re seeing all around us and that is men in a position of enormous power, abusing people who are weak. Raping their bodies, using their bodies to produce children for their own pleasure and to produce children for them and these women are being used. And like we see that going on in the Middle East where they’re taking people from the Far East and these women, [they] are just raping them and the human market. So that’s what we’re being told in Genesis 6 about. Genesis 6 we are told the first sin is people who were in a position of power, the word bnei Elohim there like, people who really were powerful men. But they use that power for what? For good? No. There are people who are given that name who did use it for good, you’ll find that in Exodus, the judges, people who taught Torah. They didn’t exploit it but these people did exploit their power. So therefore they went from up here and they spiritually went down here by defiling victims and that is one of the series of sins that are outlined for us in Genesis chapter 6.
The question is, then what religion could be dismissed? If Scripture is so elastic that you can, here we have in Hosea chapter 6, where it says literally in context, ‘For I will be like a lion to Ephraim.’ I mean just read it in context (Hosea 5:13), it’s talking about Ephraim. What does Ephraim mean? That’s the lead tribe of the Northern Kingdom. What happens to them? During the first day, meaning the first, in this case the first commonwealth, the first Temple. They are carried off. Who is Hosea speaking to? The Northern Kingdom of Israel. This is the context of Hosea. So we have the first day, means the first period, they’re gone. And the Second Temple, they’re gone, they will return in the third Commonwealth. So it’s clearly talking about Ephraim. And if Scripture really is so elastic that you can take Jonah who was in the belly of this marine animal for three days and three nights and so will Christ be in the tomb then what is impermissible? What theology then could be dismissed? Because it is not loyal to Scripture. Now in truth if a Roman Catholic wants to believe that, alright. Roman Catholic could say, ‘I believe in tradition. We have an oral tradition.’ But a Protestant? Why would you find this acceptable?…The Passover lamb was not a sin offering. The Passover lamb didn’t die for anyone’s sins. Quite the contrary, the Passover lamb illustrated that a person feared God more than the Egyptian soldiers. Because we are already told in Exodus 8 in a well-known conversation where Pharaoh asked Moses and Aaron, ‘Why do you need to bring your sacrifices outside, bring them here.’ Well the lamb was a god to the Egyptians. Like in Hindu India you are not allowed to molest a cow because it’s sacred to the Hindus. The lamb was sacred to the Egyptians…Moses’ response to Pharaoh was because if we slaughter your abomination here, you’ll kill us. So it’s in the text.
You are a ben Noach, you should not cut off your family. On the contrary, you now have a great under[standing] of family because you love the Torah. You don’t have a bible that says if you don’t hate your family and even your own life you know then… No, you should strengthen your relationship. But don’t, just like let’s say you have a family and everybody smokes, they’re all smokers. And you quit smoking. So what you don’t want to do is, (be a little careful), you want to make sure you don’t start smoking again. ‘Hey, can I have a puff? Just one puff.’ That’s what you want to avoid. Rather inspire them and say, ‘You know what? Realise that there are 250 carcinogens in the cigarette and cigarettes cause most horrible diseases, fatal diseases. Including the three big ones and you want to inspire them to quit smoking. But they need to understand, most Christians that I find are very fine people, upstanding people who just don’t know. So don’t get into a fight. Very often they have no studied Scripture, they just hear what they’re told in church. They read a card. Some do but most are not familiar with the Jewish Bible. And even for those who read the Jewish Bible, the problem for the Christian is (except for like Genesis which looms very large and their selected passages), most of the Jewish Bible to them is like a museum. Is like going to see the dinosaurs. I don’t know, Leviticus, that’s Old Testament. That’s gone. That’s done away with. It’s like, who studies Leviticus today? That’s their thinking. Why? They’re evil?? They are good people. They’re such good people. I am so impressed with (I used to not like them, but I changed my whole worldview of them – 180 degrees). Understand that they are making rational decisions (Christians are) based on a very limited amount of information. And that will lead people to trouble. And think about yourself, [if] you were once a Christian and God was patient with you. And waited a lifetime for light to come into your life for you to turn to Him. Would you consider being patient with your family and friends? But make sure that you are the headlights and not the tail lights. It would be a good thing to inspire them to consider the God of Israel. How? Don’t tell them the New Testament has 15,000 mistakes in it. That’s how you blow your whole family to pieces. I know it’s interesting to you as an ex-Christian, I know you’re angry at your church, and I am talking to you. Because you feel misled but it’s going to turn Christians off. They don’t like it and they really don’t care for the mistakes in the New Testament. They believe there are answers even if they don’t have the answers, somebody’s got the answers. So don’t do that. Don’t tell them Jesus never existed because you’ll lose them. Just use Tanakh and then trust the God of Israel. Use the Jewish Bible for them to examine what is Moshiach, what he is supposed to do. Do it with care, a lot of patience. Don’t cut off your family. On the contrary, love them.
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