SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to Lambs and Company, a podcast about life. We will feature guests and friends on the podcast to have quality conversations and wonderful fellowship. We hope you will join us. It's a life worth living, and it's a life worth giving.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Good morning. Welcome to another Lambs and Company. Life Worth Living is a life worth giving. Um, here with Dr. Artie Hall again, and we're going to jump into a hot potato subject this morning and talk a little bit about uh you know anti-Semitism. And I actually want to read directly from Webster's uh dictionary, the definition. It's relating to or characterized by anti-Semitism, feeling or showing hostility towards or discrimination against Jews as a cultural, racial, or ethnic group. Um it originated about 1879, and it came from a German word, and the background of that, but it really dates further back than that from a scriptural standpoint. And uh Dr. Hall will be talking some about that, but I'm gonna read several verses kind of as a platform to operate from. Um Matthew chapter one, verse one, it says an account of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Son of Abraham. Well, excuse me, Jesus Christ, the son of David, and the son of Abraham. So when Matthew begins to write, he immediately begins to write about the fact of the generations. And one of the things you find out is so in verse 17, so all the generations from Abraham to David were 14 generations, from David until the exile of Babylon, 14 generations, from the exile of Babylon until Christ, 14 generations, and so we we pick that particular aspect up, but then also I want to mention uh Romans chapter one, because Paul, who had actually been Saul, and Dr. Hall did a great teaching out of 1 Samuel of the first king of Israel, was Saul, he was a Benjamite. Well, Saul of Tarsus also was a Benjamite for the New Testament. And yet Saul of Tarsus also was very educated, very much uh, he was very much a very informed person of his hour and his day. And of course, when he writes to us out of Philippians, he gives us part of his pedigree and he talks about he was a he was a Sadducee, he was a Pharisee, he, you know, he was he was uh actually a part of the Sanhedrin and was a Pharisee, and he kept the law and this sort of thing. Uh so we're talking about a man that knew Arabic, we're talking about a man that knew Greek, we're talking about a man that knew Hebrew. Um, he would have been a very informed person of his day, and uh and yet he writes something in Romans chapter 1, beginning in verse uh uh three, concerning his son Jesus Christ, our Lord, who was a descendant of David according to the flesh. Verse 4, and was appointed to be the powerful son of God according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead. So again, we we find out clearly there's a tie of Jesus to the lineage and to the life of being Jewish. But the most profound thing, I think, and uh that a lot of people forget and miss is when Jesus was speaking in John chapter 4, and he's speaking to the Samaritan woman at Jacob's will, and she wants to know how is it that you being a Jew are talking to me? And Jesus spoke back in response to her and basically said, Look, if you knew who I was, you would be asking me for for water because Jesus was asking her for some water. And he said his water was living water, and then immediately she kind of changes things because her perception, she realizes this is not just an average person here, and she begins to actually talk about spiritual matters or religious life. She said, We Samaritans worship in the mountains, and you Jews worship in the city. And Jesus' response to her was the hour comes, and it now is when everybody is gonna worship the Father in spirit and in truth. But in John 4 22, it says clearly, so salvation comes by the Jew. And people forget many times that are anti-Semitic, but also operate under the thought that they're Christian, are giving a double message there. You cannot say, I'm a Christian, when salvation comes through the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is Jewish and you're anti-Semitic at the same time. You've got to think about that. You cannot dismiss that, and so you can't afford to operate with the attitude that salvation did not come by way of the Jew. As a matter of fact, in Romans chapter 1, verse 16 and 17, it says, you know, one of the things that Paul mentions here, and I'm getting ready to hand this off to Dr. Hall, so he can kind of just speak into all of this from a historical and a biblical standpoint and a cultural standpoint. But the thing that Paul says to the Romans when he's writing is he said, you know, that salvation is first to the Jew. How is it that you're saying it's first to the Jew by the Messiah, who's Christ, and then to the Gentile? Hardy and I are Gentiles. Most of the people listening to this podcast are Gentile. Thank God there's a place because of God's covenant for us to be apart and to be engrafted in. But to have the attitude that's developed today, and a lot of it comes by way of AI, a lot of it's coming from different voices and platforms. But the real danger is this when we live in a culture and a society that actually can say that Hitler was really a good guy, there weren't six million Jews that were annihilated in concentration camps, and that really didn't happen. You're trying to erase history and remove it. Because if you can erase it and blot it out, then you can create your own narrative and your own story, but the problem is it's not true. And it's the truth that makes us free. So any listener today that's listening, if you feel the anti-Semitic attitude in your heart and your mind, you need to, especially if you're you're professing to be a follower of Jesus Christ, you need to look at what you're doing and thinking and saying, how is it that salvation came by the Lord Jesus Christ, who is Jewish and was a descendant of David after the flesh, and you turn around and by the Spirit of God had a spirit of holiness about him. How is it that you can take a position to be anti-Semitic in this hour and age? And part of the argument is the Israel of today is not the Israel of the Bible. But you know what? The Jesus of the Bible is the Jesus Christ of today. He's still Jewish. You can't dismiss it, you can't deny it, and you can't run from it, and I don't recommend you fight it. So, Dr. Hall, take off.

SPEAKER_02 9:36

You know, it it it uh the roots of anti-Semitism is really a it found in Genesis, where the seed of the woman would come as the redeemer to the the the race of Abraham, to the to the to the lineage of Abraham, the w who was the first Hebrew, you know, the first of the Jews. And uh that's where the enity is. The devil hates women, the devil hates children, because the woman is going to be the one who would have the redeemer, and and that would come as a child. And that it's so he it in in the old testament, the devil's trying to stop it. And then in the new testament, he's looking back and and he's just mad, you know. That but if you look around the world, people that suffer the most, women and children, you know, and whatever happens, whatever goes on. So that's really the roots of all of that. And it's not just an anti-Semitism, it's a hatred for the people of God. Because generally, what you what you have in at least in theology, that one of the bigger questions is how do you in in Christian theology, how do you relate the Old Testament to the New Testament? And there are a couple of there are two basic views on that, as as at least they've come down to where we are now currently. One is more of a reformed tradition where the view is that the people of God were chosen, pulled out, it reflected the nation of Israel, and that there is a continuity between the people of God in the Old Testament and the people of God in the New Testament. And among groups with that, there are those that want to look at a moment when God stopped dealing with Israel and the Israel of God became the church. And sometimes what you'll hear, that's sometimes called replacement theology, so that the church is the fulfillment of all those things that were spoken in the Old Testament. That's partially true. There is a fulfillment in Jesus the Messiah, there is a fulfillment in the church. There is all of that is part of partly true, but God has not forgotten about Jewish people. That's one of the things Paul makes clear in Romans that there's some role yet, it seems, for Jewish people as God began, and and and Jews will find salvation in the Messiah. You know, so so that so there is this continuity, I think, between the people of God in the Old Testament as they are sort of uh uh transformed through the church into the into the to the church, because the first church was all Jewish. Jesus was Jewish, everybody else was Jewish for the first 10 years. And then later it moved into the Gentile world. So, so that the whole idea that somehow you don't like Jews is just nonsense. There's there's no way to, you can't separate the Old Testament from the new. So that's one view. There is another view that has been um, and and I have a tendency to to be on the side of this continuity by a couple of variations. I'm not I'm not a replacement theology guy. I don't believe in that, but but I'll I'll explain. Uh the other view is is found among dispensationalists. Dispensationalists see these eras of the church as they go through, and it was very popularized in the turn of the century, Schofield Reference Bible. Uh, they were caught up into the Zionist movement of the time, where there uh uh Theodore Hertzchill and others that were looking at restoring Jews to Israel, and the the idea sort of sort of evolved in this thing with with with dispensations that if we could get the Jews back into Israel and get the nation restored, then Jesus come back faster. You know, it's sort of the idea that was there, and uh, which is not really true, but but that that was the idea. And in this one, you have God dealing with Israel, dealing with Israel, dealing with Israel. Jesus comes as a Messiah, Israel rejects the Messiah, and God pauses dealing with Israel. There's that, as Paul calls it, the partial hardening. And then now we're in the church age. The church age is like this parenthesis, the age of grace, the age of the church that will exist until in dispensationalism, until the rapture occurs and the church is taken out of the world. And then God will deal with Israel again, and that will be the tribulation and all those things that were there. So what you have in that is that the church was sort of an afterthought, and and God just it happened by accident and or something. I don't know, it's just odd. I I see that whole I don't see that in the scripture. I see the continuity. I think the better way to relate the two together is something called remnant theology. And what you find in that is that God has always had a remnant of believing people within what would culturally be the group that was following God. You saw that in Israel. Not everyone in Israel was an ardent believer in God. They there was idolatry, there was sexual immorality, there were all kinds of stuff went on in Israel that uh that so that, but there was always a group, always a remnant, always a believing remnant of people. That people of God, those are the people of God they they carried through all the way to the destruction of Jerusalem, into the exile, into the New Testament era, to the family of Jesus. All that was involved in that, they were a they were a believing remnant. Joseph, Mary were part of that believing remnant. But there were other Jews who were not so much. They were just culturally Jews. They liked Greek culture, they a lot of that. All of that was there. But those folks are the people of God. And those folks became part of the church because they accepted Jesus as a Messiah, and that early church was all Jewish. So that was the believing remnant. And anyone Jewish now that wants to be a part of that believing remnant just joins the church. And you can the agreement in Acts 15 was that you can be as Jewish as you want to and be a Christian. You just accept Jesus as the Messiah. That was the whole point. Now, obviously, there's some changes that have taken place. If you want to go back to temple sacrifices and all of that, that's a problem because that that part's been done away with. But to keep Jewish law, to keep Jewish dietary law, to keep that all that's fine. And but and you can accept Jesus the Messiah. So there's there can be that continuity of God's people. So I see that remnant, that believing remnant of God's people, that's going all the way back to Abraham or all the way back to Adam. So I that's I think the connection between the two. And there's no room for anti-Semitism in that. And yet, you know, historically, uh in the reform movement in Germany, the the anti-Semitism that arose in that was really more of a cultural thing. Martin Luther had some blind spots. Martin Luther didn't really like peasants, poor people. He really didn't like uh Jewish people, and and that carried over into the reformed tradition, particularly in Germany. So that goes all the way back to the Reformation. And part of that arose from the uh cultural association of Jews throughout the medieval time. Uh uh and that goes back to Islam. Islam took over the Middle East. Christians in Europe sometimes would see Jews as allies of Islam, which was not really the case, but they would see it that way, particularly going into Spain. And so there was this hostility often toward Jews in Europe, and they would be excluded. They could not own property, they couldn't have uh houses that were owned, they they but they could have money. So because they could have money, they sort of the the medieval system of banking developed at the time, particularly with the Knights Templars, and they some guy invented fractional money, he was a genius. And and uh also they started passing paper back and forth, you know, at that time, and involved in all of that, the Jews became involved in all that. And they because they couldn't really own property, they couldn't have anything but money. So they had lots and lots of money, and they ran houses and all that was involved with that, but but they also ended up loaning money to kings, financing that all of that happened, and because the Jews couldn't really lend money to each other, but they could lend money to Gentiles, you know. That that was part of what went on. So out of that came a cultural uh resentment of folks like that, and that carried over into the Reformation and moved into all of it. So you end up just with this anti-Jewish feeling that somehow there's something wrong. And and uh and that's it is spiritual. That there it is absolutely demonic because there's no logic in that. So the so they're bankers. What's what's up with that? Well, I mean, what is the problem with that? As long as you have a reasonable amount of interest and all that, I all that's involved. But uh it it is it is truly a a demonic thing in rejecting all of that. And part of that has spilled over into the modern era now that we've got a restored nation of Israel. There's a nation in the Middle East called Israel, and it has Jews there. A lot of these Jews, uh the the Jews have traveled all over the world, they've been part of so many different countries, there's been a whole lot of intermarriage going on. So if you're looking at trying to find some sort of genetic connection between all of this, you're not necessarily gonna find that. You're not gonna find it in your family either. You know, it it we have all intermarried with each other around the world. And that, you know, that's that's why we're we're saying there is no race is an artificial thing. We are all people, and we can intermarry and have wonderful little children and all of that, and and that's happened. So a lot of the people in Israel, you know, who who are Jewish, they're culturally Jewish. They have been they have been born in Jewish families, they have practiced Jewish law, and some of them are perhaps in a genetic sense going back to the original group, particularly the ones that are the Sephardic Jews that go back to North Africa, Spain, and Israel, particularly the Sephardic Jews, the European Jews, Iskenazic, probably have different roots, but a lot of them go back, same thing. You know, and so so it's just ridiculous if you want to try to trace everybody's DNA. Because you're just not gonna find it. You're gonna find everything mixed together in that, because that's just what happened, what's happened in the world. So that's not really the issue. And I think people want to identify the nation of Israel, the political state of Israel now, and that somehow we need to be blindly loyal to that state. I don't know that that's a good idea, that because the Israelis are not always angels. But my support for Israel is not so much theological support. My support for Israel is they're the only political ally we got in the Middle East. You look at everybody else, none of them are really a good idea for Americans to be allied with. And the Israelis share Western civilization, Jewish, Christian, through the Germanic tribes of medieval times. That's Western civilization. Greek, Roman, Jewish, Christian, all of that. Western civilization. The Jews have that. Everybody around them does not. And I think that is where our alliance is. And, you know, see you have people that want to criticize Israel. They want to accuse them of all kinds of stuff. They've probably done some stuff. So is all so have all the rest of us. When you get in con, they have been, they have had wars since 1948. They'll have a war every 10 years. And they've got everyone around them wants them dead. How do you deal with that? So obviously you have to fight back, you have to prepare, you have to deal with things. And the way you win against an enemy is to defeat them. And I think sometimes that that's ugly. Sometimes war is ugly. And you know, so you just have to so I everybody gets caught up in this. Oh, it's genocide. They're destroying the people in Gaza. They're this, that, and it it no, no, no, no. They're just fighting for their lives. You know, because because if they stop fighting, they'll be killed. Yeah. That's just the reality of Israel's existence. You know, they put down their weapons, they'll disappear. The Arabs put down their weapons, or all these surrounding countries, the Jews will leave them alone. They they don't want to, they don't want to fight. Who does? You know, so so it's just this, it is really interesting to see how the politics have caught up in all of this. And just and it's honestly, I think, just ignorant people who don't understand history and don't understand the bloodthirsty, uh just uh blood-curdling d violence of the Middle East, particularly during the the Islamic conquest, and and they don't realize that that's there. And people have just forgotten about that.

SPEAKER_01 23:49

That's that that's very people will take what you just said, the entirety of that. You've kind of taken a lot of history, you covered a lot of time. Yeah. Um going back to the original thought that kind of brought and and continues theologically to come into the into the body of Christ today. I think some of that goes back to the 1800s with Derby and um Lawrence Clarence Larkin. And then uh and then it moved into Schofield and uh Dake. And um and it kind of moved through. And I I'm not saying that these people didn't have other areas that they were a blessing to the body of Christ, but I I I I think when they got into the dispensationalism in the way that they did it and wanted it to be so perfect and they wanted everything to fit into these different time slots, it created um really an an imbalance and and and a wrong type of thinking that developed with that. And um so um but the other thing I think was key to what you were saying, I I don't know how many people stop and think about several things real quickly, because um this is kind of a full lot of content, one program. But number one, I was asked this question this week. You know, a young younger person said, you know, I've been thinking a lot about this because they were reading part of the writings of the Mala, and they were reading the Green Book, and they were reading through that. And and I and you know, they were asking me, they said, you know, that's stuff in the green book that isn't even in the Quran. I I said, yeah, but I said, you do realize the Quran didn't even come about till 600 years after Christ had come, died, been buried, raised from the dead, and ascended.

unknown 25:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

And I said, but uh, you know, I said, yeah, there's a lot of stuff they just modify and change and say and add to and this sort of thing. But the point, they made a very good point. They said, you know, everything in here seems to be to the benefit and the advantage of the man. I don't see nothing really beneficial in there for the women. And yet, so many women are joining the Muslim faith. He said, What's the deal with that? Yeah, I said, uh a real blindness. I said, There's a blindness to feel like you're being pulled into something that's big and powerful, but in reality, there's no benefit. Matter of fact, there's only oppression and suffering many times that's inflicted upon many of the women and the children. And um, so that's one thing. The other thing is the hostility that I see in the world today are aimed at two groups, Jews and Christians.

SPEAKER_02 26:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

And at one point, our founding fathers basically, you know, founded the country, this nation as a Judaic Christian nation.

SPEAKER_02 26:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:00

Um I've changed where we are currently, I think, if you look historically at different nations and everything. And I think that we're post we're postmodern in a lot of those areas that really the parallel that we uh seem to be running close to right now is more of a Greco-Roman nation. And that's not good because both of those failed miserably. And we we're currently carrying a thought and an idea that's not a reality, I think. And Christianity has got to be more than just showing up on Sundays in a suit or trousers or whatever else in a room and saying, I'm going to church. You know, that was never the idea of the New Testament. There's nobody, I think, that has contended more for that than I know of personally than you already uh in your life and our relationship. You know, I've watched you and and and I agree with those areas, you know, that you know, we have to have uh Christ wants to be real in our lives every day, not just on Sundays and Wednesdays.

SPEAKER_02 28:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:19

And it has to have an impact on our life. And it's actually caused me to go back in the New Testament when Paul was writing, and it's caused me to look at these things to realize when he's talking about being conformed to the image of his son in Romans chapter 8, and he was talking about it in the context of actually having a life that is actually an overcoming life. Part of that isn't for us when we go to heaven. He meant for that to be something, no matter what we're in the middle of, what we're facing, what we're going through, what's happening, that's where the real exodus of God is supposed to be happening in my life and other people's lives. It's supposed to be happening in this day-to-day living. Yeah. And I think we've fallen into a ditch sometimes when it comes to these areas. But but um I just think this whole thing today of this this podcast is so important because a lot of the younger people that I've been talking to, they really've actually told me six million Jews never got annihilated. And I said, no, I said, I disagree. I've been to Jerusalem, I've been to the Holocaust Museum, I've seen the lampstands made out of human skin and everything else. And I said, My mother's brother was a prisoner of war at from the Battle of the Bulge in World War II, and he was held in a concentration camp and literally nearly starved to death. And if it had not been for a soldier that just had pity or mercy on him, he would have never survived. But he did. But he was never the same after all those, all of that. So the idea that this never happened is only able to be floated today because most of the people that were witnesses to it are dying off or have either already died off. So they're not there to defend really what was what did occur. And um so uh but biblically it's very clear that no Christian, if what Jesus said in John 4, 22 should settle it for everybody. You know, salvation is of the Jew. And I think that this anti-Semitic attitude develops in other Christian circles because they say it was the Jews that crucified Jesus. Yeah, but every believer that turns around, the writer of Hebrews talks about don't crucify Christ afresh when we walk in areas of disobedience. Yeah. So what's the difference? There's not a lot of difference. I mean, and and so some of the ways that people think and what they want to justify a particular cause is not a good thing today. Matter of fact, we really need the life of Christ as a Messiah, as a savior, but also as a soon-coming king to make a difference in our life every day. And salvation did come by the Jew. It's first to the Jew, but then to the Gentile. I'm just glad I'm a part of it. I'm glad God has had mercy and brought me in. But would you uh would you be kind enough to pray over this matter and for this matter and closing us out this morning?

unknown 31:46

Amen.

SPEAKER_02 31:46

Yeah. Lord, help us to embrace your ways and your people everywhere. Father, people that believe in Jesus, people that have accepted the Messiah. Father, help us all uh be a part of the believing remnant that you have in the world. Uh Father, open eyes. Open the eyes of folks that have been so caught up in hatred and resentment and even in ignorance of not knowing. Open their eyes, Father, by your Holy Spirit, and uh let us all know the connections we have as believers in you, Father. We all believe in you, and we ask you, Father, to help us see that clearly and help us also to understand those that are false, those beliefs that are false, those gods that are false, and help us see the difference and have discernment in that. We thank you, Lord, for your Holy Spirit in our lives. You're the great teacher, and you teach us and teach us today to understand this issue. We pray in Jesus' name.

unknown 32:58

Amen.

SPEAKER_01 32:59

I want to thank Dr. Hall as always, every time he's just a part of this and the wealth that he brings to the table each time. I want to thank you for taking the time today. Ask that the Lord blessing and favor be upon you, and a life worth living is a life worth giving. God bless. Thanks.