Sid: My guest is red hot for the Messiah. He’s a Messianic Jew by the name of Ron Cantor I’m actually speaking to him by way of telephone and he’s at his home just outside of Tel Aviv, Israel. And Ronnie about 10 years ago you made aliyah; that’s a Hebrew word that means that you go up. And wherever a Jew is north, south, east or west when they go back home to Israel it’s considering going up. And when they move Israel permanently for the diaspora for the nations that’s considered going down. I like going up, anyway you wrote a book explaining the Jewish roots of the faith that very few Christians have ever even entertained ever even thought of; ever even heard. Most ministers don’t know what you put into this book. And God said “Stop, rewrite it.” And you must have been a little concerned. God told you to make it a novel but work all of these historical facts into the novel. Now tell me about the novel and tell me a couple of experiences that the character had in the novel.
Ron: Well you know when we did rewrite it as a novel it was to that very thing to take all of these facts but put it in a format that people would enjoy that they wouldn’t be able to put down. I’ve gotten so many emails Sid from pastors, a Jewish guy emailed me over the summer and he said he couldn’t put it down. Then 2 weeks later he got born again. So we wrote it for believers and then I started hearing about Jewish unbelievers reading this book and for the first time seeing Jesus as the Jew that He was and is. So what we did was the character David who was a reporter in Philadelphia; he’s searching; he wants to know the truth and he realizes as a young father and husband that he needs to know God. And he’s interested in Yeshua and he also knows that as a Jew that’s forbidden. And it’s at that point that he has a visitation from an angel. One of the things that the angel shows him is how Jewish people through the centuries had viewed him. For instance, he gets to watch a movie; he goes back to ancient Jerusalem; watches a movie about a woman who had encountered Yeshua. And her view of him was He’s a Jew; he’s the Messiah. There was no controversy, but as time goes on and you had the crusades where 10’s of 1000’s of Jewish people were murdered by the Catholic crusaders as they marched across Europe into Israel you begin to see the Jewish understanding change of Yeshua. Because what happened was that Jewish people associated Jesus with Christianity, or I should say institutionalized Christianity. We don’t believe that these crusaders were genuine believers they just had a cross on their shield that was about it. They didn’t have one in their hearts. Then he gets to see what a young Jewish boy goes through in the inquisitions where his family being forced to become Catholic converts. And their father well, I don’t want to tell the whole story but what he goes through is agonizing his story. And then of course he actually ends up in the holocaust where he hears a first young Jewish boy suffered in the holocaust. And by that time when I wrote it Sid I was hoping Sid by the time I got to that point in the book that reader would be hooked. And I read it first to my daughter because she… I didn’t mentioned this in the previous broadcast but when I was debating whether or not to rewrite it my youngest daughter she’s now in the Israeli Defense Forces; I said to her “Danielle I have this idea I feel like God wants me to rewrite the book as a novel and what do you think?” And I explained the vision and she “Dad, you’ve got to do it!” And I said “Okay, I’m going to work on it all day today and tomorrow I’m going to read you these first few chapters.” I began to read the first few chapters to her the next morning; and Sid when I got about 4/5 of the way through she burst into tears. Now this is my older teenage daughter and it’s a story that she knew her dad made up and yet she was so touched by it she just broke into tears. And that is what I’ve gotten emails and comments on Amazon.com and other places, Facebook. I had a woman the other day, and it doesn’t sound very humble saying this, but it really was a revelation from God this book. She said “Ron, this is the best book I have ever read in my life.”
Sid: Ron address this question, how did something that was obviously so Jewish; in fact let’s build that case right now. Why does the New Testament so Jewish?
Ron: Well, just look at the words of Yeshua He’s said “I came to lost sheep of the the House of Israel.” He was not born in Rome; Mary was not a Catholic, she was a Jewish girl an Israeli named Mariam; John was not a Baptist preacher he was actually a Jewish prophet prophesying the coming of the Messiah. This was a Jewish story and all of the original believers were 100% Jewish; they were not preaching in Galatia or in Ephesus the years following the resurrection of Yeshua. They were preaching in Jerusalem and in Galilee all over Israel, Akko and in mass were coming to faith but there is no evidence that it ever even entered into their mind that this was something other than Judaism.
Sid: Okay, so then that begs the question then Ron “If everything was so Jewish at the beginning, which it was, then how did it make such a change where a Jewish person like you or me didn’t have a clue the New Testament was about Jews, for Jews written by Jews?”
Ron: That’s a great question and what happened is that it started really quite early; once the Gentiles started coming into the Kingdom as you know there was a controversy whether they had to become Jewish. And Acts 15 says that they didn’t and they… but they quickly outnumbered the Jewish people. And then you have according to a Roman’s historian in the year 49 Claudius the Roman Emperor he kicked out all of the Jews from Rome; they had to leave. And Messianic Jews and non-Messianic Jews and they were gone for about 5 or 6 years. And during that time the Roman believers, which was probably a group of house congregations, they developed a theology that God was done with Israel, God had finished with Israel, and they were now the new Israel. So in the year 55 – 56 Claudius dies and the Jews are allowed back into Rome. So these Jewish believers they go back to their congregation but now they’re treated like second class citizens. The Gentiles who had been leading it now for the past 4 or 6 years begin to treat them very poorly. Now if you have that bit of information then suddenly the book of Roman’s makes sense why it’s called so insisting that the gospel is to the Jew first. Then in Roman’s 11 he makes such a strong case that God has not rejected Israel. And then in the middle of that chapter he warns the Roman believers that if God could break them off then He could break you off too. Don’t be arrogant but be afraid in how you treat the Jewish people.
Sid: Well in light of that verse that you just read what would you say to someone that believes today God is finished with the Jew. He wants Jewish people to know Him but he’s finished with the Jew as a distinct people; He is finished with the call of the Jew, and as a matter of fact, they’re kind of anti-Semitic because they say that the Jews killed Christ.
Ron: Right, what I would say to that person I would say “Be careful, really with all the compassion and love that I have please be careful because that’s a dangerous place to be.” Read Roman’s 11 it says very clearly that if the Gentile Church turns against Israel that God will have a big problem with those people and that’s what happened. Who did Paul write Romans to? The Romans and what did the Roman Church become; it became a church that rejected the Jewish people; it solidified the theology that the church has replaced Israel. And within a very short time the Catholic Church was nothing but a museum of dead tradition and works righteousness. They judged Israel and then they became the very thing that they judged. Now I know that there are many godly Catholics that believe in Yeshua that are born again; but as an institution they begin to create traditions that you can’t find in the Bible. And they begin to persecute the Jewish people and God says “Don’t be arrogant but be afraid; if I can cut off the natural branches I can cut you off as well.
Sid: Well, as you point out the dividing line between the true believers and the false believers in the last days will be “Do you have the same position on the Jew in Israel as God has; and if you have that same position you’re going to move into the same works that Jesus has done and even greater. And if you don’t have that position you’re going to move I heresy and further error.” By the way, to the question of the Jews killed Christ. This is what Paul says in Acts 4:27 (This is who killed Jesus by the way) Acts 4:27 “For truly against your Holy Servant Jesus whom you anointed (Now here’s who killed Him) Herod, Pontius Pilate, the gentles and the people of Israel were gathered together to do whatever your hand and your purpose determined.” So who killed Jesus? The Jews and the Gentiles, you get the Jews and Gentles together you get the whole world. That’s who killed Jesus as a fact no one could kill Him; He laid down His life for the whole world. So stop being mashuga, stop being crazy come to your senses…
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth