Sid: My guest by long distance telephone is Dr. Michael Brown speaking to him at his school in Pensacola, Florida. He’s President of the Fire School of Ministry and the Pensacola Branch will shortly move to Charlotte, North Carolina. They also have a campus in New York. I’m interviewing him on his newest book “Revolution in the Church” subtitle “Challenging the Religious System With a Call for Radical Change.” And on yesterday’s broadcast I said “Mike the whole book I believe where the corruption really started has to do with Chapter 10.” And Chapter 10’s title is “Have you read the Epistle of Jacob lately?” And explain to those that who not listening yesterday about the Epistle of Jacob.
Michael: Well it’s commonly known as the Epistle of James in English. If you read the Greek the Greek is Yacov which is Jacob. If you talk to people from different parts of the world most of them would tell you “Oh yeah it’s something very close to Jacob.” And somehow even before King James when this when the Greek was translated into English it came out as James which is a wrong form its basically corrupt form really unrelated to Jacob ultimately.
Sid: What it does that and many more things it puts a wall of separation between Jews and Gentiles, or in this case Jews and Christians which is actually Jesus said “I came to break down that wall and it really does separate these 2 people groups. But equally as important is these biblical Jewish concepts have somehow been lost. And on yesterday’s broadcast you were talking about the concept of the Kingdom of God is at hand explain.
Michael: Let’s look at it like this if Jesus came into the world to establish a lovely new home and garden religion called Christianity and we put on our Sunday best and we go to our lovely service and go home and have a nice life and that was the intention of God and now we have to spread his lovely faith to the whole world. Well let God be God we’ll do it but that’s not what we find in the scriptures. The prophets were expecting a Messianic age and the final culmination of that age will be when Jesus returns and drives out all the wicked destroys the wicked, establishes the Kingdom of God fully on the earth. But right now is the transition time. Where the Kingdom broke in the King was at hand, the Messianic era began when Jesus the Messiah began His ministry and then when He died and rose from the dead at that point on according to scripture we’ve been living in the last days even in the last hour as it says in 1st John the 2nd chapter. And now Jesus has enlisted all of us into his Messianic movement to go and change the world. To drive back the forces of darkness, to set the captives free, to leave everything and join His holy cause. In other words he’s talking about a revolution.
Sid: But why do we have a gospel that says repent of your sins, believe in Jesus and you will be saved as opposed to saying “Making Him Lord.” I mean as I read the New Testament and think for myself a gospel without making Him Lord is only a half a gospel.
Michael: Well I’m even glad that you mentioned the repentance part because sometimes we just preach “Call out to Jesus..”
Sid: You say this prayer. (Laughing)
Michael: …And save you and you’ll go to heaven. And thank God ultimately the greatest issue is forgiveness of sins and spending eternity with God but the bottom line is the great commission is to go and make disciples. And Jesus said “If anyone wants to come after me let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.” And then the commission is “Go and make disciples of the nations and teach them observe everything you’ve heard from Me everything I’ve taught you now you go and teach.” And I’ve spent a whole chapter in “Revolution in the Church” dealing with the subject of what it means to be a disciple. It’s just being taught like or is this the cutting edge, what does scripture actually teach? And I go through some of the terms that we use like Christian we talked about it yesterday. It’s fine to use the term although it’s meaning has changed a lot through the years and basically let’s be realistic here it occurs only 3 times in the entire New Testament not 30, 300 just 3 times. It’s not the primary way that the followers of Jesus were identified and in this age here in America to say I’m a Christian what does that mean to most people?
Sid: Let me tell you what it means to Jewish people. I’m quoting your book in 2001:
Christian leaders form all different denominations wrote to Secretary of State Colin Powell and urged him not to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s Capitol at this time that’s what it means to Jewish people.
Michael: Let me take this a step further. Sid there are major national Evangelicals Leaders, editors of major Christian publications and heads of major ministry, I’m talking about fellow believers people that love Jesus I’m not talking about people who are just in church somewhere, I’m talking about true believers who love Jesus and believe in the authority of scripture. They have recently written towards the end of 2002 they wrote to President Bush urging to have a more “Even-Handed Policy” on the Israel thing and to much more side with the Palestinian and things and really the whole idea of taking sides the right or wrong they were basically saying “You can’t do that.” And I read the thing and was absolutely shocked by the names on it. And thankfully James Dobson wrote to the President and said “Don’t move an inch when you stand for Israel this is absolutely right.” And from a humanitarian point and from a biblical viewpoint….
Sid: Okay let’s forget Mike Brown’s spin let’s forget all of these Christian ministers spin. What’s God’s spin on that?
Michael: God’s spin is very simple and Sid I have been blown away by opportunities to witness to Jewish people based on what’s happening in the world today. They’ll say “Why the Jews, why are we hated around the world, why Jerusalem?” There is a worldwide satanic conspiracy to wipe out the Jewish people, to destroy the nation of Israel and to get Jerusalem out of Jewish hands. I don’t mean that our people are guiltless, I don’t mean that our people don’t need to repent…
Sid: By the way for those that don’t know both Mike and myself are Jewish believers in Jesus go ahead.
Michael: And nor am I saying for a moment that the nation of Israel is a perfect and Godly nation far from it but there’s one city in scripture that we are…that Jesus wept over and it’s recorded that He wept over. Luke 19 “He wept over Jerusalem.” It’s the one city that God calls us to pray for and give Him not rest until He establishes the praises of all the earth Psalm 122 and Isaiah 62. It’s the one city that it says in Zachariah 12 that “All nations will come against her. And it’s the one city that it says in Zachariah 14 that the Lord will touch base and that He’ll put feet there. Jesus will return to that city the Mount of Olives. And it’s the one place that Jesus said “You will not see me again” in Matthew 23 “You will not see Me again until you say “Baruch haba b’shem Adonai.” “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord” which comes from Psalm 118 and those are the words of which they welcome back the Messianic King. In other words there must be a Jewish Jerusalem to welcome back the Messiah or He will not come and establish his Kingdom on the earth. The devil knows that when Jesus comes back and establishes His Kingdom on the earth it’s all over for the devil. And everything in his power is devoted to wiping out the Jewish people having a world conspiracy that hates Israel. Before the Jews were in the land before the Jews were guilty of these so called atrocities against the Palestinian’s whom we love and pray for and reach out to but before any of this the Jews were hated just the same. Worldwide anti-Semitism now is on the same level that it was immediately before the holocaust. Why it makes no sense? Of course it makes no sense it’s diabolical, it’s irrational, it’s Satan’s plot. And one of the things that he has done is he has infiltrated the church not just with the horrible history of anti-Semitism and for those that aren’t familiar with it in this one chapter in this “Revolution in the Church” it is an absolute shocker. And Sid let me just ask you something this is your interview but let me ask you this. If I told you about a wonderful sensitive guy that loves Jesus powerful anointed, filled with the Spirit tremendous miracles everything the only little hitch is that he preached this little series of sermons a few years ago called “Kill the Blacks.” What would you think of that?
Sid: I wouldn’t want him in my church!
Michael: And you’d question his walk with God wouldn’t you.
Sid: I’ll tell you something I would give him zero, not only question his walk with God I would give him zero place in anything.
Michael: Well it in this Chapter in “Revolution in the Church” have you read the Epistle of Jacob lately I have quotes from Martin Luther and other great Church leaders that will curl people’s eyebrows that Nazi war criminal sitting in the Nazi war trials the Nuremberg tails some of them said “You shouldn’t be trying me you should be trying Martin Luther because we simply followed his counsel. How could this be from someone so mightily used by God that there could be such a terrific aberrations and anti-Semitic…
Sid: Listen the encyclopedia Judaica says, “Short of the ovens everything Martin Luther said was similar to what Hitler said in reference to the Jewish people.”
Michael: Hitler thought that Luther was a Genius and in fact some historians have called Luther the John the Baptist of Adolph Hitler. How could this be? What happened is the church embraced a false theology that said “The church has replaced Israel and that God is finished with the Jewish people.” And now embraces a theology that says modern Israel today is not part of God’s restoration that God has not brought the Jewish people back to land for His end time purposes. And once people think like that Sid the door is wide open for all kinds of other biblical doctrinal spiritual error.
Sid: Mike what we’re talking about is so foundational to understand the rest of your book that I’m almost sorry that you waited till chapter 10 to talk about it. I’ve got to find out what you mean by Chapter 4 “The Body is not an audience and the preacher is not a performer.”
Michael: Well Chapter 4 follows on Chapter 3 “The Church is Not a Building and the Family is not a house.” And Sid I would have very gladly put the 10th Chapter as the 2nd third or fourth chapter, but in all honesty I don’t believe a lot of readers would have gotten through the rest of it they would have misjudged it they would have thought “Oh here’s just another pro-Israel, oh here’s now just another Jewish roots guy.” Without understanding that this part of the larger problem how we have departed from a biblical foundation. When I say that “The Body is not an audience, the Preacher is not a performer.” I’m talking the true nature of the Body, I’m talking about the wrong notion of the clergy, laity decision. I’m talking about a wrong concept and here’s another translation error. The Greek word ekklesia means a congregation. It means assembled people, it means people called out if you go back to…
Sid: Oi we’re out of time!
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth