Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Speaker A: Well, I'll tell you that a lot of times when you have a guest fill in for you, one of the things that you're always supposed to do is you're supposed to listen to what they say before the drive in to services the next week.
In other words, this morning I just listened to what Derek Limbaugh talked about last week. And it's so very important to have a young voice standing up here saying this and encouraging. And it was challenging, I'm sure, for many people, but also very true.
Now, the difficulty is it's pretty much exactly what I'm gonna say too. So you're gonna get a double dose of what we talked about. You ready? Not exactly. Because here's the thing.
I always expect that, you know, the Shabbat after Thanksgiving usually has pretty slim attendance. This is way better than I expected. Honestly. There's usually like eight people here.
Okay. And I don't know if that's from traveling or Turkey or tryptophan or the triple T, I'm not sure. But I thought today might be a great day to actually work and kind of practice out before you a stand up comedy routine I've been working on. You know, if it was gonna be a small crowd, why not? I wanna take this show on the road. But as I was finalizing my jokes, I received a video from my dad.
And it's bigger than any joke I could actually ever tell.
It's laughable, but it's not funny. How's that for a riddle?
I want to show it to you, but does Anyone remember Kirk Cameron, 80s heartthrob for all the teeny boppers. They had their posters on their walls of Kirk Cameron from Growing Pains. And he became a household name in the 80s, millions of Americans welcoming him into their home.
But that's actually not why I want to show you one of Kirk Cameron's videos. And it's not from the 80s. It's not growing Pains. Kirk Cameron became a bigger star.
Star, maybe. That's not.
He became bigger than a TV star. He became actually one of evangelical Christianity's most recognized faces.
He starred in the movie Fireproof. He was also the main character in the movie Left Behind. If you remember that millions and millions and millions of Christian Christians saw that he became a spokesperson, very much so, for family values, Christian living, for the faith. He was a Hollywood voice that stood for God. Still is, actually.
That's the point. When Kirk Cameron spoke Christian, people listened. And he had and has a pretty significant platform.
And this video, which I saw variations of it now.
I heard that it was taken down but yet I'm easily able to find it so I don't know the damage is done.
When I pulled it down off of x there were 900,000. I'm sorry, that's an exaggeration. 866,000 plus views of this video and the headline said it was not posted by Kirk, it was posted by someone else. It said Kirk Cameron is done with Israel and here's what he has to say about Israel, about Genesis 12:3, about who God's chosen people actually are. And we've talked about this before, but I wanted Kirk to speak for himself. Remember the platform size.
We are commanded as Christians to support the government of Israel. We are commanded to support Israel.
[00:04:06] Speaker B: I know the verse that Tucker Carlson is talking about in Genesis actually doesn't say Israel. It says that those who bless you, Abraham.
This was before Israel will be blessed by God and those who curse you, Abraham, will be cursed by God. Jesus demystifies who the children of Abraham actually are and Paul absolutely clarifies it. For not all who are born into the nation of Israel are truly members of God's people. Wait, that sounds like it contradicts what Ted Cruz just said. Being descendants of Abraham doesn't make them truly Abraham's children.
It sounds like he's saying not all of Israel is really Israel just because they're Jewish. Israel didn't have a nation or a land to call their own for almost 2,000 years since the destruction of the temple in the year 70 AD. The nation of Israel was recreated through some political operatives after World War II. So in that almost 2,000 year period, what did it even mean to bless Israel or to curse Israel? There was no Israel per se. I think the scripture makes it clear that it's about whether you're blessing or cursing the true children of Abraham, those who believe the promises of the gospel.
[00:05:33] Speaker A: 1954. That was nine years after the liberation of Auschwitz.
My mom grew up in a small town. There were not a lot of Jews in that town. But my dad grew up in Dallas.
Very high concentration of Jews, large Jewish community. He grew up in a Jewish home where the Holocaust was not a historical study.
It was yesterday.
And he remembers and has shared with me men and women, friends of my grandparents coming over to visit with numbers tattooed on their arms.
He remembers that no one talked about that, that conversations would shift pretty quickly when certain topics came up.
And he also remembers that his parents never trusted Christians.
Not openly hostile, of course, not confrontational. That's not really The Jewish way, just quietly, deeply convinced that when it mattered most, Christians could not be relied upon.
Now, I never understood that. I grew up in a traditional Jewish home, attending synagogue, living a Jewish life. But many of my friends were Christian.
And Christianity very much in my generation seemed very different.
Decades had passed since the Holocaust. There was a sort of a new birth of evangelical Christianity. The 60s had changed things.
The 70s, the 80s, Calvary Chapel, Jesus music, charismatic worship, the whole thing. I mean, and with it came a genuine love for Israel and the Jewish people. Now, that had existed, but it was.
It was palpable. It was obvious.
And these Christians were not the Christians that my grandparents, you know, that's not who they remembered. These Christians wept for Israel. They blessed the Jewish people. They stood beside Israel.
And when I became a disciple of Yeshua in my early 20s, it was partially part of. Because of what I had seen and felt from these Christians, particularly within the Catholic Church.
There was a very love, a very real love. There was a genuine support. My friends and their parents had grown up on the other side of the Holocaust. It's a very different narrative about Jews than the one that had shaped Christian Europe by this time.
And I really thought, gosh, my grandparents, what sticks in the mud, they just really. They don't get it. Like, stuck in this old paradigm. Christianity, obviously had changed so much through years of demonstrating love and patience. Even my grandmother, who hated what I had become as a messianic Jewish, she eventually softened, which was beautiful. She saw the love she experienced, the kindness she came to accept, even if she didn't fully understand what had happened to her grandson and her son and his wife and his other sons.
But now something is happening that I didn't see coming and wouldn't have ever wanted to admit.
And I'm beginning to understand my grandparents and I need to be clear. And Derek, Derek, as I said, we had some similarity in this teaching that I'm sharing with you. But he was also very, very intentional about pointing out something similar to what I'm going to say, that the majority of Christians, particularly evangelical Christians, remain steadfast friends of Israel and the Jewish people. I believe that of the evangelical movement, I've seen it, and I'm grateful for that. And that's not really what this message is about.
This is about what happens when you watch, when you actually take your head out of wherever it may be buried, whatever sand or whatever brown bag is over the head of most people that these days, and you watch, you really watch as a vocal and growing minority begins to Sound exactly like the Christians my grandparents were suspicious of.
When pastors who once spoke warmly of Israel now call it an apartheid state.
When young Christians influenced by progressive justice movements describe Jews as. As colonizers, as oppressors, even Nazis.
When the language of standing with the oppressed always excludes the Jewish people, regardless of the fact that we have been history's most consistent victim.
Undeniably. Now anyone who wants to challenge that.
When you hear Christians who claim the name of the Jewish Messiah declare that Israel does not have a right to exist as a homeland for the Jewish people.
And when you hear Kirk Cameron, 80s, heartthrob voice of evangelical Christian Christianity, Mr. Left behind and Fireproof, tell millions of Christians that they misunderstood Genesis 12. I've already taught on this once again and it just keeps going. When you tell people that Genesis 12 doesn't mean what they think, that they've been deceived, that the promises to Abraham really weren't about the Jewish people, that for 2,000 years, when there was no nation of Israel, what did it even mean to bless or curse Israel? I don't know. Ask God.
He was part of the inspiration behind the Psalms that said, pray for the peace of Jerusalem, even if it's not in Jewish hands. Where's the fine print?
Where is the fine print in the Bible that talks about unless or accept or. You got that wrong.
It's not in there.
Kirk Cameron and whatever. He's just the poster child for this message.
He says Jesus demystifies who the children of Abraham are.
Seriously.
Paul comes along, he says, and absolutely clarifies it. Seriously. Not all who are born into the nation are truly members. I did a teaching in Romans. I don't know how many weeks, 18 weeks we talked about Romans 9, 10, 11. Go back and listen to it. If you need to understand what Paul's talking about there.
This is the very famous word that everyone gets tired of hearing. I know because it's just said a lot. This is replacement theology.
This is the same poison that justified the centuries of Christian persecution that occurred.
The language is updated.
But now the true Israel is those who believe the promises of the gospel. But the fundamental message is this. The physical descendants of Abraham, the Jewish people, no longer God's chosen people, unless they accept Jesus. Now that's also not in there. And that can be argued. I know somebody is just going to destroy this.
I invite you to go ahead and do that.
That's not what the Bible says.
I need you to understand what this feels like because it's not political disagreement. It's not a foreign policy issue.
It's the reemergence of something that's very ancient and terrible and something that I really believed was kind of over. I thought never again meant never again, and I thought it had softened. And you know, interestingly, what was the transition?
The moral bankruptcy of Woodstock hippies and free love, that actually was a major transition when new forms of Christianity came about through these Calvary Chapel. If you watch the origin of Christian music and you see all this stuff that was happening in the 60s and 70s, they may have been doing a lot of other bad things, but when they came out of that, a lot of them went to church and they started really loving people. Not in the same way they did at Woodstock, but you know, that movement of the Jesus movement, Jesus people thing, that was really the rebirth of modern messianic Judaism that was happening during this time.
That generation, and yes, Jews in many ways mostly were evangelistic targets.
That's the facts. But there was something else.
They were brothers and sisters.
And you know what? My grandparents never really saw that shift.
They lived in the shadow of Christian Europe's greatest moral failure, and they were not about to let their guard down because for them, Christians might be nice on the surface, but to trust them, that required more evidence than just what one generation was going to be able to provide.
And here's the hard part. I understand now that they understood something I didn't that had been unfortunately passed down to them.
They had seen a pattern before. Warmth, coldness, acceptance, rejection. They weren't actually being paranoid. They were being historical.
And what I'm witnessing now is a historical boomerang that the generation of Jesus people who kind of transformed Christian Jewish relations, even the Catholic Church with Nostra Aetate and all those things that were going on back then is being replaced by a new generation.
Kirk is not really of the young generation, but he massively influences it through TikTok X and whatever else.
But these are the ones who speak about Jews and Israel with the same undermining rhetoric that was pre Holocaust Christianity.
I'm watching, and I hope you are seeing allies abandon Israel. Not just politically, theologically reinterpreting the Bible.
That's a bold move, is it not?
Blog posts, social media, people who worship Jesus while demonizing the Jews.
I have even seen Jewish believers in Yeshua being told that they need to denounce Israel to prove their Christian identity and their allegiance to Jesus.
And this is a feeling that I never really thought I would have as a Jew in America in the 21st century. But this is the feeling that my grandparents carried their entire lives.
And I understand that. And I know, I know, I know, I know that I've said this a lot.
And there's a tendency maybe to say, here he goes again, here he's at it again.
Another message about antisemitism, another derogatory message toward Christians and attitudes and all this. Doesn't he have anything else to talk about? What about the Bible?
I do have a lot of other things to talk about. However, I will not stop talking about this.
And I might be the clanging cymbal banging the drum over and over and over again. And you know what I'm unashamedly doing now? That because history has proven the negative consequences of doing otherwise, history has shown with clarity that apathy and silence and putting your head in the sand, these are indicators toward dark, dark, dark days for the Jewish people. When good people stay quiet, when allies look away, when friends decide that the issue is too controversial or too political political or too divisive to talk about, that's when darkness creeps in. And part of my calling as a Jewish follower of Yeshua is to help you understand inside the Jewish experience, to help you understand what it feels like to be us.
Because Derek gave a phenomenal message, and yet Derek is not Jewish.
Thus many of you love the Jewish people. You support Israel, you pray for the peace, you stand against antisemitism. I'm so grateful for that. But there are parts of the Jewish experience that you'll never understand unless someone just invites you in.
So I'm inviting you, helping you see through Jewish eyes, understand when this ancient hatred is all dressed up in modern theological language.
That's what I want to do. I think about my grandparents who survived a world where Christians either participated in or stood silent during the murder of all those people.
I think about my parents. They grew up in between sort of some of that, some of the renewal. And then I'm thinking, you know, of course, about what's in my generation, what's to come.
Because the frustration is being Jewish and watching your supposed allies, your adopted brothers and sisters in Messiah, when that begins to crumble, when you begin to be abandoned, it's not because you've changed. It's not because Jews have done really anything to deserve it at all.
It's just sort of. It's like theologically hip or something, which I just don't understand.
Theologically fashionable now to turn against.
We could say Israel, but we've talked so many times about how that's Jews.
It's Jews.
Deuteronomy 4. God says, Israel, keep the commandments. It'll show wisdom and understanding to the nation. So our calling as Jews, if you believe the Bible, has always been to be a light to the world, I take that very seriously. It's not because we're morally superior, we definitely are not. But because God chose us for this purpose, something we get to do, something we're called to do. And I'm not even asking anyone anywhere to agree with every decision that Israel makes.
Israel, the political entity, the state. I'm not asking for that. I'm not asking you to ignore the nuance of the situations in the Middle East. There are some, admittedly, that I can admit. I'm asking you to notice, of course, when Jews are told that they are out of the story and everything is conditional upon this or this or this, and you'll never be God's chosen people unless you become a Christian. That can't be. It just can't be. It's not what the Bible says. Here's the tragedy. My grandparents were right to be cautious.
They were.
And history shows the emerging pattern. Christians warm to Jews, then cool, then hostile. And that has happened for 2000 years. But it doesn't have to keep happening.
Because you are different.
You are aligned with Israel. You, not everyone. I mean, there's a lot of people that watch these things. It's not everyone.
You're seeking to understand possibly why or what Israel fits in, how you connect to it, how you can influence, correct and educate to reach the Christian that my grandparents could have and down deep really wanted to believe in the kind who doesn't just love Jews when it's popular, because we're in it together. Because when the world turns, somebody's got to stand with the minority way, minority of the Jewish people.
And the kind of people who, and this is why this word is so important, refuse to let replacement theology masquerade as some biblical truth because that's what it's being promoted. I can tell you this.
We want to live in peace.
That's really what we want.
We want to live in peace.
And that's hard to do.
So listen.
That sounds so negative, doesn't it?
It's a Thanksgiving weekend, Rabbi.
[00:23:59] Speaker B: Come on.
[00:24:01] Speaker A: Can you find some gratitude?
Like, golly, I didn't even want to come. It's a holiday weekend. I'm tired from the turkey and the tryptophan. But I got up to come in here and hear this again.
Listen, let me tell you, this might sound negative, but here's My answer? I am incredibly thankful.
Hodu Hodia.
I'm so thankful. Modeani. All of it. I live in a country that allows me to stand up here and say what needs to be said.
I live in a country where Kirk Cameron can still say what he wants to say, regardless of the ignorance behind it.
And I can speak out. I can use my voice here to sound the alarm of theological trends that are dangerous. I live in a country where freedom of speech matters, where we can talk about antisemitism, about replacement theology, about. About the dangers because many Jews in Europe lost that freedom.
They lived in a world where being Jewish meant hide.
You can't be.
You're vulnerable if you're Jewish.
I was talking to somebody recently at a conference. They have relatives in France. The kids cannot do anything Jewish for risk of having the crap beaten out of them outside their front door.
I don't live in that country where speaking up in the 30s and amazingly today meant risking everything.
The simple act of existing as a Jew could get you killed.
I live in America, and I have a voice.
And far more than that, I live in America with a community like you.
And I'm grateful for that.
Incredibly grateful. You are here today. You are friends of Israel. You're brothers and sisters in Messiah. And you know what? Some of you may have differences of opinion about how Israel conducts itself. That's okay.
I understand that.
But you stand with Israel. You stand with the Jewish people, and you'll listen to what I'm saying, and some of you will share what I'm saying, and you'll refuse to let replacement theology go unchallenged. You're going to push back when you hear wrong information.
You're going to be equipped to discuss things like covenants and what that means.
And for that, I could not be more grateful.
Could not be grateful.
My grandparents never got to experience that.
You understand? That's the difference.
They never got to experience what I'm experiencing right now, standing in front of a congregation of Jews and Gentiles who. Who love Israel and refuse to abandon one another.
And wouldn't I believe it? I can't speak for everyone online, but when I look around in this room, wouldn't abandon me or my family.
I am so thankful for that.
My grandparents never got to see it, but I do. Every Shabbat, I get to see it every time I write an article and watch it get shared, I get to see it every time someone says, I appreciated what you said. Keep saying it. It's helpful.
And ultimately, I'm thankful to God because he remains Elohei Yisra', el, the God of Israel, not just the God of those who accept Jesus. And that may be hard to say, but. Or hard to hear, but he's the God of Israel, not just the God of true Israel defined by faith alone. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God who made a covenant with the people, who has never for 4,4000 years walked away from it.
I thank God that he is also the God of the nations, that he loved the world. So he sent his son that through Yeshua, the blessing of Abraham. You want to talk about Paul? The blessing of Abraham has come to the Gentiles, that you who were once far off, have been brought near to the covenants of Israel through the blood of Messiah. I'm thankful for that.
And of course, that doesn't mean replacing. But you all know that. You can read for yourself Romans 11, where Paul so bluntly states, the gifts and calling of God are what?
Irrevocable. You know what that word means?
Tell Kirk.
God is faithful to all of us.
Israel in the flesh. Israel according to the faith, to the Jewish people, to the church. It's not replacement, it's fulfillment. It was always this beautiful expansion story. The apostles were amazed that it was happening in their time. And they got to participate and be builders and invite the nations in. That took a little bit of fighting. Didn't really know what to do with the nations. We had to have this big council in Jerusalem, but we sort of got it worked out.
And I thank God that we can dig for and reveal the truth. In a world of theological confusion and lies and deception and darkness, we can still point to the Bible and say, look, it's right here. I know, but that's not what it says. No, it is what it says.
It is what it says.
How do Jews come to see the Messiah?
To mourn as one mourns for an only son, to seek and see the Son of David? I don't know exactly. I really don't know exactly. That's Paul's great word in Romans, mysterion.
I don't know all of it that comes.
That's God's thing.
But I can tell you this. If Paul heard Kirk Cameron's narrative and all the other ones, he'd be sick to his stomach.
He'd be embarrassed that his words built that.
And so, God willing, here's the deal.
Let's continue to reveal the truth because we can answer those voices, social media.
Gosh, I hate it. But sometimes there's a place. Sometimes there's a place where you just gotta speak out.
Not me, because I'm never on it. I only go looking for anti Semitic things that I can use for messages and it takes me like 2.2 seconds and I have seven of them.
But let's pray and be thankful for our congregation and for congregations like this that continue to exist. And that this congregation will also inspire many, many churches to be friends advocates that Jews and Gentiles worship the Jewish Messiah together. No one has to give up their identity. Nobody has to become something they're not. And God willing that my grandkids will never ever have to write articles like I write or give messages like I give.
Because you, this, this generation will have done the work that is required to push back and to not let history repeat itself. So, yep, that's, that's my Thanksgiving message.
I am thankful for America, flawed as it is, because it gives me the freedom to speak. I am thankful to you, imperfect as we all are, because you give me courage to keep speaking.
I am grateful for God, for the faithfulness that never ever, ever, ever wavers, whose covenants don't fail, whose love for Israel and the nations never diminishes. And I'm sorry, thankful that we don't have to stay silent. So I beg you to not be silent.
And I'm grateful that together we'll be a light.
I'm grateful that there are so many people who will not let Kirk Cameron's words undermine the biblical truth, who will say, not on our watch, not in our generation.
We will not repeat history.
So I thank you for being those people. I thank you for listening to the clanging cymbal. I can't promise you this is the last clang.
And thank God that He gave us all that we have in him and in each other and in the world that is to come.
May the Prince of Peace arrive, bringing peace soon and in our day. B' Shem Yeshua, Shabbat Shalom.
[00:34:04] Speaker B: I'm Darren with Shalom Macon. If you enjoyed this teaching, I want to ask you to take the next step. Start by making sure you subscribe to our channel Next. Make sure you hit the like button on this video so that others know it's worth their time to watch.
Last, head over to our website to learn more about Shalom Macon, explore other teachings and events, and if you're so inclined, contribute to the work that we're doing to further the kingdom. Thanks for watching and connecting with Shalom Macon.
