 So, I wanted to begin tonight by just defining, for our purposes, the term missionary, because what is meant when we say missionary, and this is a counter-missionary crash course. Often people have different associations with this word. Many people think a missionary is the nudnik that comes knocking on your door or giving your literature on the street. We tend to think of missionaries as paid professionals. That's not the working definition of going to be operating with tonight. I'm going to be working with a more sweeping definition, which is that a missionary, for our purposes tonight, is any Christian that is seeking to sway us to their faith, any Christian, whether they are a professional or just a layperson, in any kind of context, any Christian that's seeking to sway us to their faith is, for our purposes tonight, at least, a missionary. In today's world, what we're talking about in terms of today's world, are basically evangelical Protestants, of which there are, according to some estimates, 80 million, 90 million in North America. We're including, in addition, relatively modern Christian sects like Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh-day Adventists. Those groups and evangelical Protestants all seek to convert Jewish people. There's one main reason. There happen to be many reasons why they seek to convert us, but the one main reason to understand is very simple. They believe that they are saving our souls from an eternity in hell. The basic belief of these Christians, which is basically extracted from their Bible, is that anyone who does not come to faith in Jesus faces an eternity of suffering in hell. And that's why they seek to convert everyone that's not a believer. They really feel they have a responsibility to the entire world. In the 18th century, there was a great Torah scholar named Mbionicin Ibishitz, and he was once challenged by a Catholic priest. The priest said, don't you Jewish people believe in the principle that's based upon your understanding of Exodus chapter 23 verse 2 that you have to decide everything according to the ruling of the majority? This is what the Catholic priest asked of Mbionicin Ibishitz, don't you Jews believe in Achare Rabim L'Hatos that you have to go according to the majority? He went on to say that we, us Christians, we're the majority. You Jews are a small minority in the world, and if you believed your own Bible, you would have to follow what we believe. What was this priest's great argument to this world-class Torah scholar? Now the truth is that there were many possible answers that Mbionicin Ibishitz could have given to this priest. He could have handled this challenge in many ways, but he retorted very sharply. And he said that yes, we do believe in this concept of following the ruling of the majority. He said, but that's only when you have a doubt, meaning the only time the Torah tells you to go according to the majority is if there's something that's not clear, there's a doubt, there's a question about what to do, and there you put it up for a vote. He said, but in a situation where there's no doubt and we're totally clear, we don't follow the majority. This is what he told the priest. What he was saying, when it comes to the issues of Christianity versus Judaism, we don't have any doubts whatsoever. To us, it's perfectly clear. We don't need to resolve this question by putting it to the majority. Now why is it that Judaism has no doubts when it comes to the claims that are made by Christian missionaries? Why is that? And that's what I'm hoping to explore tonight. And what I would like to do is begin by summarizing the basic narrative of Christianity and the assertions that flow from that narrative. This is going to be really simplifying and generalizing the Christian narrative, but it would serve our purposes for tonight. The number one, what Christians believe is that after Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, mankind became spiritually defective and incapable, not capable of living righteous lives that could be pleasing to God. That's the assertion of Christianity that after the sin in the Garden of Eden, human beings are now under the rule of Satan. Satan controls our lives and we are incapable. We are not able to live righteous lives. Number two, Christians assert that God chose Israel, God chose the people of Israel as his messengers to the world in order to reveal his plan, to reveal God's plan for the rectification of what went wrong in the Garden of Eden, to really reveal to the world how we're able to extract ourselves from the dilemma that we face. Christians believe that God gave the Jewish people a law, a book of law, the Torah. And the purpose, according to Christianity, for God revealing the Torah to the Jewish people, this is going to sound strange, but the missionary slant on this is that God gave the Torah to the Jewish people to show us that we are wicked, to show us that we are evil. Because the Torah represents God's perfect will, his perfect righteous will for mankind. And the Christian believes that human beings are not capable of living according to this standard and therefore the assertion is that the Torah serves as a mirror and that when we look into the mirror we will see how filthy we are and that we are sinners in need of God's redemption that God will provide for us. So basically the Christian idea here is that God revealed the Torah to the Jewish people to demonstrate our inability to keep it. The Christian believes that the scriptures that God gave to the Jewish people also reveal to the Jewish people and by extension to the rest of the world that God was going to send the Messiah who would come to die as a sacrifice for the sin of mankind and allow human beings to then have fellowship with God. That once the Messiah takes our sins upon himself and atones for our sins if we will believe in him, then the human being becomes clean and we're able to stand upright in the presence of God and so the Christian asserts, the Christian claims that this idea is revealed in the Jewish Bible, that the Jewish Bible teaches that this is what God is going to do. Christians insist that it's only through the shed blood of a sacrifice who dies in our place that we can be forgiven of our sins. The Christian says that the whole reason that God gave Israel the sacrificial service in the temple was to teach them this lesson that we need sacrifices, we need the blood of sacrifices to atone for our sins and that there is no other way of being forgiven. And the Christian insists that the sacrifices that were given to the Jewish people, they only point to the ultimate real sacrifice because they will say that no animal sacrifice can really take away human sins and even a human being who would come to die for our sins also would not be able to effectively atone for our sins. And that's why the Christians insist that it wasn't only that God sent the Messiah to come to die for our sins, but the Christians insist that the Messiah could not be human because if he was human, he wouldn't be able to accept upon himself all of the sins of mankind and so what the Christian asserts is that the Messiah that would come would be God himself, that God would come to the world, take on human form and he would come as the Messiah to die for our sins and to be a sacrifice for them. Now the Christian missionary today might admit that these ideas are only hinted at, only hinted at in the Hebrew Scriptures in the Jewish Bible, but that they are fully explicated and clarified in the Greek Testament, in what they call the New Testament that chronicles the life of Jesus that's in the four Gospels that come at the beginning of the Christian Bible. They claim again that the Christian Bible clarifies that this Messiah who was to come would be divine and that their Bible, the Greek Scriptures clarify exactly why Jesus came to the world. So although the Christian missionary insists that these basic teachings are hinted at in the Jewish Bible, they only become fully clear in the Christian Scriptures. Now there's obviously much more to Christianity, but if I had to sum it up on one foot, this is the basic narrative of at least the kinds of Christians that are seeking to convert Jews. Now what is the foundation of Judaism? What is the foundation of the Jewish faith? And the answer to that is that the foundation of Judaism is our national experience. The national experiences of the Jewish people are the foundation of Judaism. Through these formative experiences going back to the experience of our ancestors in Egypt, God demonstrated through these national experiences that he is real, that he controls all of reality. And he did this through the dramatic supernatural miracles that were performed in Egypt. The 10 plagues were designed to illustrate clearly that there is a God that created the world because there's a God that we see that's able to control all of creation. And this demonstration of God's reality was so clear that even Pharaoh said, et spah elokeem he, this is the finger of God. That's how clear God was able to make himself. God also revealed this to the Jewish people at the incredible splitting of the Red Sea, providing the Jewish people with miraculous food every morning, the manna that came from heaven to feed them, and many, many other miracles that took place in the desert. And the most important, the most significant was the revelation of God's Torah to the Jewish people at Mount Sinai. Let's go to these source sheets and look at sources one and two. So in passage number one from the book of Exodus chapter 19 verse nine, God says to Moses, behold, God speaks to Moses and says, behold, I come to you in the thickness of the cloud so that the people will hear as I speak to you. It's not simply that God's going to speak to Moses privately. What God is saying here to Moses is, look, I'm going to speak to you and the entire nation, three million people who came out of Egypt with Moses, they are going to hear as I speak to you. And therefore the verse says they will believe in you forever. Meaning why is it that the Jewish people believe in the prophecy of Moses? Why do we believe that Moses was a true prophet? And the answer is not that Moses came down from Mount Sinai and told us, guess what? God spoke to me. And maybe he was able to convince the Jewish people through his charisma. That's not what happened. What God wanted was clarity. And God made it imminently clear that Moses was a prophet by making sure that the prophecy of Moses was a public revelation, a national revelation. Every Israelite at Mount Sinai heard God speak to Moses and therefore we believe in the prophecy of Moses forever. The book of Deuteronomy chapter four, the next source, number two, God says, has any people heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire as you have heard it and survived? Or has a God tried to go to take for himself a nation from within another nation by trials, by signs and wonders and by war and by a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and by great terrors as the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? To you it was shown, to you it was shown that you might know that the Lord is God. There is none other. There is no other besides him. So this passage in Deuteronomy reviews this idea that God showed us that he is real. This is important because the Christian missionary insists that the only way that God communicates with us is through text. The Christian missionary insists that the only thing we have to know about God and to know God's will is in the text that God revealed. What this is called is soloscriptura, only the text, only the scripture. And we see here that God chose to reveal himself, not only through the words of a text. He didn't send the Jewish people a memo explaining who he is. God says here, I showed you who I was. I demonstrated to you who I was. And this is a very critical passage that God revealed himself to the Jewish people through the experiences of our nation in the Egyptian exodus and at Mount Sinai. Christianity and Islam, by the way, both Christianity and Islam accept all this as true. This is significant that our spiritual competitors totally accept as true the foundational, fundamental claims of Judaism. They accept the verity of the Egyptian exodus and they accept the reality that God revealed himself to the Jewish people at Mount Sinai. However, both of these daughter religions, as they're called, insist that later on God revealed additional teachings. But wait, there's more. And that these additional teachings present the new and improved revelation of God, meaning if what God originally revealed was sufficient, you don't need anything or else. So both Islam and Christianity say the original revelation was not sufficient. And that's why God had to reveal further instructions and further teachings. And so both Islam and Christianity insist that God later came and revealed additional teachings that basically render Judaism as obsolete. And this is taught explicitly. I didn't print it out for you. But in the Christian Bible in the book of Hebrews chapter eight, it says specifically that once God gave the new covenant, the New Testament, it rendered the Old Testament, the Old Covenant obsolete. It is now basically for the trash bin. Now here is where an important legal principle kicks in. There's a principle we have in Judaism, but it's also found in almost every legal system in the world. This is source number three, which is Hamotzi, Mechavero, al-Avharaya, which basically means the burden of proof is upon the claimant. If someone has something, if I own something, right, I've been driving around my car for the last three years and you come and you insist, no, it's your car. So the court is going to say, well, prove it, right? If you wanted to change the status quo, if there's a status quo and you want to change it, you have to prove your case. And this is especially true when it comes to matters of faith. The question I want to begin with tonight is, what is the proof that the Christian scriptures are of divine origin? Again, we know why for us as Jews, we believe our Bible comes from God because we actually heard God reveal them at Mount Sinai. But what is the proof that the Christian Bible is from God? What's the proof that they were revealed divinely? So we saw that Moses' credibility, the credibility of Moses, was not based upon his claim to being a prophet. It's not based upon Moses' claim that God spoke to him. It's important to realize, as we go further, that the five books of Moses is the core, is the absolute nucleus of Judaism. And all the other books of the Bible don't really reveal anything new. There are no basic ideas that are revealed, no new commandments. All the other prophets that came after Moses are basically there to scold the Jewish people when they were not observing the Torah of Moses and to encourage Israel to follow the teachings of Moses. The core of the Jewish Bible is the five books of Moses. But what about the so-called Christian New Testament? It's interesting to realize, this is before we really get into the topic, but it's interesting to realize that in the Christian Bible God never speaks. Many Christians don't realize this. You don't see God speaking in the New Testament. Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, the most popular verse in the five books of Moses is, that God spoke to Moses saying, and then they follow up with what God revealed. And this is literally on every page, practically, of the books of Moses that God revealed these teachings to Moses. The entire Hebrew Scriptures basically is God speaking. The prophets would say, thus says the Lord, and they would reveal what God said. You don't see the Almighty speaking in the Christian Bible. He's never quoted. He never speaks. You basically have the writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul. They all claim that what they're writing was somehow transmitted to them by God. But you don't see God himself speaking. The thing that's important to recognize about the Christian Bible is that there is no public revelation. All that the authors are claiming is that God revealed these ideas to them. It's simply a claim. It's an assertion. But what I asked was, where is the proof? Where is the proof that God spoke to Matthew? Where is the proof that God spoke to Paul? And the truth is there is absolutely no proof. Do the authors of the New Testament qualify as prophets? Do they even qualify? So let's think about this for a minute. How do I know that Moses is a prophet? The Bible tells us because we heard God speak to him. But how do I know that Jeremiah was a true prophet? How do I know Isaiah was a true prophet? And the answer is not because they claim to be a prophet. Because every false prophet claims to be a prophet. So how do we know that Isaiah is a true prophet? How do we know that Jeremiah is a true prophet? And the answer is that God gave us a way of determining whether someone is a prophet. God gave us a way of determining that. And the way was not for God to come down from heaven and rubber stamp what Isaiah said. The Bible doesn't say if you want to know whether someone's a true prophet or not, pray to me and I will tell you whether the person's a true prophet. That's not what we find in the Bible. The Bible tells us that false prophecy is a capital crime. It's not just simply not cool to be a false prophet. The Bible says it's a capital crime. So the question is how do we know whether someone is a false prophet? How do we know whether someone's a true prophet and who makes the decision? Who decides? So in the text here in text number four, Deuteronomy chapter 17 verses 8 to 11, we're not going to read it just to save time. But what it says here is that whenever a question arises about anything that's significant, any kind of issue between people or different punishments or controversy, anytime there's something that we don't know the answer to, it doesn't say pray to God and he'll give you the answer. It says that you consult with the leading judges of each generation and you have to listen to the ruling of the judges of your generation. So if you want to know why is it that we accept Isaiah as a true prophet, the answer is because the leading judges at the time of Isaiah accepted him as a true prophet and they didn't rule that he was a false prophet and the same with every other prophet in the Hebrew Bible. However, none of the New Testament writers were accepted as true prophets according to the judges and the people that God told us that will adjudicate whether someone's a true prophet. One of the reasons why any Jew would know that the New Testament authors were not true prophets is because there are numerous contradictions between the New Testament and the Hebrew Scriptures. There are contradictions in fact, meaning that there are stories that are rehashed in the Christian Bible that contradict the stories that were told originally in the Jewish Bible. So which one is true? Is the story in the Jewish Bible true or is this story as it's told in the Christian Bible true? And what you have to understand is while it's perfectly possible for the Jewish Bible to be true and the Greek Scriptures not to be true, the opposite is not possible. It's not possible for the Christian Bible to be true and the Hebrew Scriptures not to be true. And then we have not just contradictions, in fact we have contradictions in theology, in critical parts of theology. We'll see some of those tonight. Another question I would raise just almost it's funny is really the New Testament is really the word of God. Why does God all of a sudden switch from Hebrew to Greek? Hebrew is the language of revelation. Why all of a sudden is the Bible being revealed in Greek? So Christians need a proof. They need to prove to us as Jews if they are expecting that we are going to basically walk away from Judaism and embrace Christianity, they need to have very, very strong proof for this claim that the New Testament is the word of God and all of their efforts to prove this fall very short. Next point, Christianity insists that we cannot be good. That's one of the assertions, one of the axioms of Christianity is that we cannot be good. We are not able to keep the Torah and that's why the Messiah had to die in our place. Now where do we see these teachings in the Christian Bible? If you go to page two on top I have two passages from the Christian Bible. The first is from the book of Galatians which was written by Paul chapter 2 verse 21 Paul says I do not set aside the grace of God for if righteousness could come through the law through the Torah then Christ which means the Messiah died in vain. Paul is saying that if we could keep the Torah and if the Torah by keeping it would make us into righteous people then Paul says then Jesus died in vain. So you see from here that since Paul doesn't believe that Jesus died in vain Paul is teaching here that we are not able to be good through keeping the Torah. Another teaching of Paul from Romans chapter 11 verse 26 Paul says and in this way all of Israel will be saved and as it is written the deliverer which means basically the Messiah will come from Zion and what will he do he will banish ungodliness from Jacob. According to Paul the whole purpose of the Messiah coming is to remove ungodliness to remove the sin from Jacob. Now why does Paul feel that the Messiah has to take the sins out of us? The answer is as we saw previously Paul does not believe we can do it ourselves. Paul believes that human beings are incapable of overcoming the sin problem. Paul believes that human beings cannot escape the reality of sin so he says since we cannot do it again because for Paul if we could do it who needs Jesus. So Paul insists we cannot do it and Jesus therefore comes the Messiah comes according to Paul to remove the ungodliness from us which means to remove sinfulness from the Jewish people from Israel. It shouldn't surprise you to know that Paul here when he says as it is written where do you think he's quoting from? He could not be quoting from the New Testament because when he wrote this the New Testament didn't exist. Paul is quoting here from the Hebrew scriptures from the prophet Isaiah chapter 59 but he misquotes Isaiah he actually distorts what Isaiah says. Isaiah doesn't say that this redeemer is going to come to remove ungodliness from Israel from Jacob. Isaiah says that this redeemer will come to those of Israel to those of Jacob who turn away from sin. So Isaiah speaks about the fact that we have the ability to turn away from sin and throughout the Hebrew scriptures that's the program of redemption that the messianic redemption the Messiah comes as a response to Israel turning away from their sins and back to God. You will see this if you check out Deuteronomy chapter 30 verses 1 through 3. You don't have it in front of you here but it teaches the same thing that when Israel turns back to God that's when God will bring about the redemption and so what Paul is teaching here is not based upon the Jewish Bible what Paul is teaching here is based upon a distortion of what the Jewish Bible actually teaches. So is it possible for us to resist the temptation to sin? Is it possible for us to resist the temptation to sin? Is it possible for us to be obedient to God? Is it possible for us to be righteous? The absolute clear testimony of the Hebrew Bible in numerous literally dozens and dozens of passages is yes to all of these questions. It is possible for us to resist the temptation to sin. It is possible to be obedient to the Torah. It is possible to be righteous. Let's look at the sources in number six. God says to Cain, this is the beginning of the book of Genesis, after Cain's inferior sacrifice was not accepted by God and his brother Abel's sacrifice was accepted Cain became very depressed and very upset. So God says to him in Genesis chapter 4 verse 7, surely Cain if you improve yourself you will be forgiven. Meaning that God is assuming that we can improve and he says but if you do not improve yourself sin will rest at your door. You're going to have sin at your door all the time and God says its desire is toward you. Sin will always be tempting you but what does God say to Cain? He says yes yet you can't conquer it. So God assures the first human beings after the Garden of Eden story, right after the expulsion from Eden when you would think maybe the Christians are right. Maybe after the sin in the Garden of Eden human beings cannot resist to sin. God immediately says to Cain, no you can overcome the temptation to sin. Is it impossible to keep God's commandments? Well God explains very clearly in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 30 that no it's not impossible to keep His commandments. This again is in source number 6. For this commandment that I command you today God says it's not too hard for you. Neither is it far away, neither is it far off. It's not in heaven that you should say who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us that we may hear it and do it. Neither is it beyond the sea that you should say who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us that we may hear it and do it. But the word is very near to you God says. It is in your mouth and in your heart that you can do it. God says very clearly here that we can keep His Torah. Is it impossible to be righteous in the sight of God? As the Christians insist. So if you look at source number 7, the wisest man who ever lived, Solomon writes in his book of Kohela, Ecclesiastes chapter 7 verse 20, there is certainly no one who is righteous on the earth who only does good and never sins. What Solomon is teaching is not that there are no righteous people. Solomon is teaching that you know what even righteous people sometimes sin because human beings, even the most righteous ones, we're not perfect. Only God is perfect. Only angels will not sin. But human beings simply because we're imperfect, we're physical, we're not God. We will make mistakes. And so Solomon teaches here that even the most righteous person in the world will sometimes sin. But you see here that you can be righteous. And what does he reveal in the book of Proverbs chapter 24 verse 16? He reveals who is it that will still be considered righteous after they sin. Solomon says, though a righteous person might fall seven times, a righteous person might make mistake seven times fall down, yet he will get up. The difference between a righteous person and a wicked person is that the righteous person learns from their mistakes, they grow from their mistakes, they pick themselves up and they become better people through the process. But the Bible here calls them righteous, even though they sin. Now the Christian missionary insists that the only way to be forgiven for your sins is through a blood sacrifice. This is an axiom of Christianity. It's taught in the Christian Bible and all missionaries teach it that the only way to be forgiven for our sins is through a sacrifice that is offered with blood. And the truth is that even though the Bible had sacrifices, we know one thing that the sacrifice could never by itself atone for our sins. We know that Solomon teaches this in the book of Proverbs. You don't have this on your sheets. But in Proverbs chapter 15 verse 8 and in Proverbs chapter 21 verse 27, Solomon says that the sacrifice of the wicked is in abomination to God. Meaning if you think that you can sin and all you need to do is bring a sacrifice and God will be happy with you. Solomon says, no, God finds that disgusting. God finds that disgusting. So the sacrifice in and of itself, the blood in and of itself could never achieve forgiveness for our sins. So what is the path to forgiveness? So you'll find this on the bottom of page 2. This is from the prophet Ezekiel chapter 33. And what's important about this passage is that it directly asks the question about what we do in the face of sin. The prophet says, now is for you, son of man. This is like God speaking to Ezekiel. Ezekiel was referred to as the son of man. God says to him, as for you, son of man, say to the house of Israel, God tells Ezekiel, the prophet to say to the people of Israel, you have said that our transgressions and our sins are heavy on us and we are wasting away because of them. The people of Israel were bothered. What do we do about our sins? What do we do? That's the question that's being raised in the 33rd chapter of Ezekiel. And God says to Ezekiel, tell them, as I live, this is a declaration of the Lord God, that I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked person should turn from his way and live. Repent. Repent of your evil ways. Why should you die house of Israel? What God is outlining here to the prophet, Ezekiel, to the prophet Ezekiel is that the only response to sin is repentance. Repentance is basically the acknowledgement that we did wrong. It involves confessing to God and declaring verbally to God, I did X, Y or Z, or I didn't do something that I should have done. We can't just have this something that's fuzzy inside of ourselves. The Bible teaches that we have to actually confess to God, not to anyone else. We have to confess to God our sins. We have to pray that God will forgive us, ask his forgiveness the same way if you wrong anyone you have to ask for their forgiveness. You have to make restitution if it's possible. So if your sin was that you stole something, you've got to return what you stole. Sometimes you've got to pay back double as a fine. But in the Bible, there might be restitution. And finally, you have to resolve not to commit the sin again in the future. This is what repentance means. And this idea of God's forgiving us through repentance is taught repeatedly in explicit passages in the Bible. I show you on the bottom of the page here. This is taught in the book of Isaiah chapter 55 verse 7 and the prophet Jeremiah 36 verse 3. The entire 18th chapter Ezekiel teaches this. Second Chronicles chapter 7 verse 14. The third chapter of the prophet Jonah. What happens in the book of Jonah? Jonah goes to the city of Nineveh and says, God's very upset with you. You're in big trouble. In 40 days, this city is apt to be overturned. What happens in the story? They don't rush out and start bringing sacrifices. We're told that they begin to repent. They turn away from their evil ways. And what does the prophet Jonah tell us? That God forgave them of their sins because of their repentance. Christians insist that Jesus was the Messiah who came to die for the sins of those who would believe in him. Again, Christians insist that Jesus atones for the sins of those who would believe in him. However, there is not one explicit verse in the entire Hebrew Bible that tells us clearly to look forward to someone who will come to die as a sacrifice for our sins if we will believe in him. There is no such verse or passage anywhere in the Jewish Bible. So what is the Christian case for Jesus? How do Christians advance their argument that Jesus was the Messiah? And basically there are two parts to their brief for Jesus. You find this both in the Gospels and in the literature and arguments of modern missionaries. If you read through the Gospels, one of the major themes is that Jesus must have been the Messiah because of all the miracles that he did. And most modern missionaries today will use the same tactic. They will say, look, what I believe as a Christian must be true because I was ill and Jesus healed me. And they will tell you about all the miracles that happened to them. So the question is, do miracles prove that someone is the Messiah? So the truth is that if you go through the entire Jewish Bible, you will never find one place which tells us that miracles will prove that someone is the Messiah. It never says this anywhere in the Jewish Bible that miracles can be proof that someone is the Messiah. One of the things just to be aware of is that miracles are not exclusive to Christianity. Every religion on the planet claims to have experienced miracles, not just Christians, Jews and Mormons and Buddhists and Hindus and Sikhs. Every religion lays claim to the miraculous. Obviously miracles could not really prove much. And if you look at source number nine on page three, you'll see what it says in our Bible in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 13. If a prophet or someone who has dreams arises among you and proclaims a sign or wonder to you and that sign or wonder he has promised to you comes about, it comes true. But he says, let us follow other gods that you have not known and let us worship them. Do not listen to that prophet's words or to that dreamer. For the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul. The Bible is telling us here God is even warning us there are going to be false prophets and these false prophets will have the ability to do incredible signs and wonders and miracles. Really? So if they're false prophets why would God allow them to be able to do miracles? Well God says here to test us and it's interesting that in the Christian Bible they actually have the same teaching in the book of Matthew chapter 24 verse 24. He writes for false messiahs, false messiahs, and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders to lead astray if possible even the elect. Now if it's possible for false messiahs to perform miracles, could a miracle ever prove that someone is the true messiah? Obviously not. It could only be a proof if the only person on the planet capable of doing miracles is the messiah. Then if someone would do miracles then that maybe would be proof. But since we know in the Bible that people that are not so good false prophets and false messiahs etc. are capable of doing miracles we know that in Egypt when Moses was doing the miracles the 10 plagues, pharaohs, magicians were able to do some of the same miracles. So miracles don't prove that what you believe is true. The second part of the case for Jesus in the Gospels and by today's missionaries is that Jesus fulfilled hundreds of prophecies in the Old Testament about the coming of the messiah. This is one of the major claims that missionaries make is that Jesus fulfilled hundreds of prophecies from the Old Testament that speak about the coming of the messiah and that they were fulfilled by Jesus. Now is this true? So a number of years ago, I think going back four or five years ago, I did a radio program over the course of a year with someone named John O'Vandor from Australia. He was formerly a Christian missionary and he was able to see himself out of that and together we explored a list of over 300 alleged prophecies that Jesus fulfilled. It's often done by missionaries to intimidate people. If you tell someone that Jesus fulfilled 300 prophecies who's going to bother going through all those prophecies? It's just a very large number that sounds like wow that's an amazing case. So over the course of a year, we actually studied each one of these prophecies. You can find this series on the Internet and what we discovered was that as you analyzed and as you chewed through each of these alleged prophecies, they were like cotton candy. When you chew cotton candy, it disappears very quickly like it never existed. And so these alleged prophecies that Jesus fulfilled were basically like cotton candy. There's nothing there. And one of the things I did in this series was to show that many Christian scholars and many Christian commentaries in the Bible will agree with the Jewish interpretation of these alleged prophecies. Let's look at one of them. In source number 10 on page 3, this is actually quoted in the Christian Bible and it's interesting this is the only time that Jesus himself says that he fulfilled a verse in the Bible, in the Jewish Bible. Many Christians will say that the Jewish Bible predicts that the Messiah would be betrayed by a close friend and they cite as the proof for this Psalm 41 verse 10 where David says even my trusted friend who shared bread with me has lifted up his heel against me. Now on the surface this is a very easy passage to understand. Most of the Psalms are written by King David. We know that King David was betrayed by many people close to himself. His father-in-law spent years trying to track him down and kill him. His own son went after him to try to kill him. David was betrayed by many of his own people and so David writes about his own life here in this psalm but the Christian missionary insists no this is actually a prophecy predicting that one of the ways you'll be able to identify the Messiah is that the Messiah would be someone who is betrayed by a close friend. So when we analyze a passage like this we want to ask ourselves if I read a passage like this how do I really know that it's talking about the Messiah? What is the proof that this verse is really speaking about the Messiah? Question number one question number two couldn't a verse like this apply to almost anyone in the world? Hasn't almost everyone on the planet at some time in their life felt that they would be betrayed by someone close to them? Number three if you read a few verses earlier in this psalm the writer says to God heal me oh Lord for I've sinned against you. The person who says these words in verse 10 that he was betrayed by a close friend says to God heal me for I've sinned against you. Do Christians really believe that Jesus sinned against God? So even many Christians will say no obviously this psalm is not speaking about Jesus but what happens and you have to listen carefully what happens is that the missionary approaches the Hebrew Bible without a clear concept of what the Messiah really is. The Christian missionary approaches the Hebrew scriptures without really having a clear understanding of the concept of the Messiah. What they do is to approach the Hebrew scriptures with the preconceived belief that Jesus was the Messiah. This is the methodology of the Christian missionary. They approach the Jewish Bible with the assumption that Jesus was the Messiah and then they scour through the entire Hebrew Bible looking for sound bites that sound like Jesus. They want to hear something that sounds like it's speaking about the life of Jesus or what they believe about Jesus. The parable that's often told is of the person that's in the forest and he sees a tree and on the tree there's a target like someone would have for target practice and in the middle of the bullseye is an arrow surgically in the center of the bullseye. He can't believe it who was able to get such an accurate shot and this person walks further and sees another tree with another target and another arrow right in the middle of the bullseye and he sees 10 such trees and he can't believe it how could anyone shoot so accurately and on these trees there are no misses there's just one arrow right in the middle of the bullseye he sees someone with a bow and arrow and says did you shoot those arrows and the pillow says yes he says I got to shake your hand you're incredible how did you do that he says it's not that hard you see first I shoot the arrow into the tree and then I draw the target around the arrow so what happens is the Christian missionary again begins their study of the Jewish Bible by shooting their arrow into the tree Jesus was the Messiah now let's find things that sound like Jesus the truth is that you could use that approach and find hints and clues and what Christians often call types and shadows for Jesus in any document you could find it in today's Globe and Mail you'll be able to find a phrase that you say oh that reminds me of something about Jesus when you read the Bible with this kind of agenda you will do violence to the Bible if you approach the Bible with a preconceived agenda you will do violence to the Bible and you will end up taking passages out of context what this means is that Christians will generally find passages that are not really about the Messiah this list of 300 plus prophecies virtually none of them are about the Messiah but what happens is since they sound like Jesus the missionary says it must be a messianic prophecy so if you went back and asked the Christian missionary why do you assume that Psalm 41 verse 10 is speaking about Jesus why it's speaking about the Messiah they'll say well because it sounds like Jesus and that's to them why it must be about the Messiah and all you need to do to puncture this is this kind of mistake is to read the passage in context just like in real estate the number one rule is location location location when you're studying the Bible the number one rule is context context context so look at chapter look at source number 11 this is from the prophet Zachariah Zachariah chapter 13 I want you to look at verse 6 which is the last verse on the page and many missionaries will believe that this is a prophecy about Jesus where it says and one shall say unto him what are those wounds in your hands what are those wounds in your hands and Christians immediately think of it must be the crucifixion and so they say this passage has to be about Jesus and this becomes one of the 300 prophecies that Jesus fulfilled and he will say and he will answer those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends but the problem is if you study the whole chapter from verse 1 you will see very quickly that this chapter is not talking about the Messiah it's speaking about the execution of false prophets and again most Christians that are serious about the Bible will acknowledge that that this chapter is not about the Messiah it's about the execution of false prophets in the future but people that want to use the Bible as propaganda they will say uh-huh another prophecy that proves Jesus was the Messiah what does the Tanakh actually teach about the Messiah if you wanted to find what the Bible what the Jewish Bible actually teaches about the Messiah turn to page 4 and here we have a famous prophecy from the prophet Isaiah they will come forth a rod from the stem of Jesse and a branch will grow out of his roots the spirit of the Lord will rest upon him the spirit of wisdom and understanding the spirit of counsel and might the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord his delight is in the fear of the Lord by the way when Christians insist that the Messiah is God it's interesting that this passage tells us that the Messiah will be someone who fears God if the Jewish Bible wanted to make it clear that the Messiah was God it wouldn't say here that he will fear God it would say this is God it wouldn't just say there's gonna be someone that comes from the root of Jesse it's gonna say there's someone from the root of Jesse who's gonna come as God but Isaiah tells us here that this person will fear God and he will not judge by the sight of his eyes nor decide by the hearing of his ears but with righteousness he will judge the poor and decide with equity for the meek of the earth and the wolf will dwell with the lamb and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat and a calf and a young lion and a fatling together and little child shall lead them they will not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea if you want to understand what the Jewish Bible teaches about the Messiah you find many of the of the main contours of the Messiah here it will be a wise and righteous descendant of David it speaks here about Jesse who was the father of David there's gonna be a rod a shoot that comes out of Jesse which means it's gonna come through David and we're told he'll be righteous and wise but we're told that in his days there's gonna be peace in the world which is characterized here by all these animals living together in peace throughout the Jewish Bible animals represent the nations of the world that comes up very regularly in the book of Psalms and all the animals that used to fight with each other and kill each other and eat each other Isaiah says they're gonna be living in peace with each other and then he says they will not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain God is saying it's gonna be peace when that happens the whole earth will be full of the knowledge of God so some of the main contours of the Messiah is that when the Messiah is here they'll be universal peace they'll be universal knowledge of God we see this also in Jeremiah chapter 23 the next passage Jeremiah says behold the days are coming declares the Lord when I'll raise up for David a righteous branch again the same idea a righteous descendant of David and he will reign as king and deal wisely the Messiah is basically a king of Israel and he will execute justice and righteousness in the land in his days Judah will be safe and Israel will dwell securely there'll be peace for the people of Israel for all of our history we've been attacked and abused never safe the prophet here says that in the future the people of Israel will dwell securely on their land and finally the prophet Ezekiel in chapter 37 writes my David's my servant David will be king over them and they will have one shepherd they will walk in my rules and be careful to obey my statutes the prophet Ezekiel says here that in the times of the Messiah all of Israel is going to observe the Torah for most of our history we didn't have all of the Jewish people keeping the Torah but the prophet here says that we're gonna come to a point where the Jewish nation are gonna return to God and be Torah observant and they will dwell on the land I gave to my servant Jacob where they fought where your fathers lived they and their children and their children's children will live there forever and David my servant will be their prince forever I will make a covenant of peace with them they're gonna be peace and it will be an everlasting covenant with them and I will set them in my land and multiply them and I will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore there's going to be a temple in Jerusalem my dwelling place will be with them and I will be their God and they will be my people then the nations will know that I am the Lord who sanctifies Israel when when my sanctuary is in their midst forevermore says the Lord now what's important about prophecies like these and there are many is that number one every Christian scholar every Christian commentary to the Bible agrees that these are prophecies about the Messiah every prophecy that are quoted by the missionaries even missionary scholars say that they're not really about the Messiah but these passages every Christian will agree with us that these indeed are about the Messiah there's a famous story that there were some simple old Jews on a train in Europe and they were being harassed by a missionary and the missionary said the following to them the missionary said you know you Jews are very strange because your greatest rabbi Rabbi Akiva he thought that Bar Kokhba was the Messiah the greatest rabbi Rabbi Akiva he was wrong about the Messiah he thought that Bar Kokhba was the Messiah and so maybe all you Jews are wrong for rejecting Jesus and the Jews who are getting a little bit nervous they didn't know what to say and the great rabbi of Heim of Brisk was overhearing this and he says to the missionary you know you are so sure that Rabbi Akiva was wrong how do you know that Rabbi Akiva was wrong how do you know that Bar Kokhba was not the Messiah but Kokhba by the way was a great Jewish general who lived about a hundred years after Jesus and he led a rebellion against the Romans against the Roman occupation and Rabbi Akiva did think he was going to be the Messiah and the Brisk of Rove asked this missionary how do you know Rabbi Akiva was wrong how do you know Bar Kokhba was not the Messiah and the missionary said it was obvious he said because Bar Kokhba was killed by the Romans and didn't bring peace to the world well that's exactly the problem with Jesus he was not necessarily a bad person but he died without doing anything the Messiah was supposed to do just going back for a moment to this question of is the Messiah supposed to be God himself so we saw that Isaiah tells us no the Isaiah will be someone who fears God but don't forget the passage we read in the beginning of the evening Deuteronomy chapter 4 verse 35 where God said that at Mount Sinai I showed you I showed you that you should know who I am I showed you that you should know that I am the Lord God and there is no one else and what God tells the Jewish people is that if you want to understand who I am and who you should be worshiping God continually says you worship the God that was revealed to you at Mount Sinai that's the God that you were able to pray to that's the God that you should worship and we know one thing that as the three million people who stood at Mount Sinai we know that we did not see any human form at Mount Sinai if you read that fourth chapter of Deuteronomy God emphasizes twice you don't have it on your sheets but in verse 12 there in verse 15 God reminds the Jewish people remember you didn't see any form any shape anything visible at Mount Sinai you only heard a voice God is saying that I'm not physical you can't see me and so at Mount Sinai we didn't see Jesus we didn't see God revealed as a Trinity and so we know from our Bible and from our national experience that the Messiah is not going to be God throughout the Bible our prophets distinguish between the Messiah and God the prophets always distinguish between the Messiah and God and they make the point of saying that the Messiah is not God the Messiah is someone that God is going to send one final question was the Torah really only given to us to show that we cannot keep it is that really the truth so interestingly there is a fascinating chapter in the Hebrew Bible it was too long for me to print here it's the longest chapter in the Hebrew Bible it's the book of psalms chapter 119 and this is an incredibly beautiful psalm which goes on for 176 verses and the entire psalm is about one topic it's about the beauty and the importance of the Torah and the commandments that God revealed to the Jewish people it's a love song a love poem to the commandments to the Torah to the mitzvot and the writer of this psalm says that these commandments this Torah that God revealed to us is sweeter than honey it's more precious than gold it's my entire desire in life and the writer of the psalm goes on and on and on about how beautiful and special and magnificent the Torah is this is a very long chapter though if the only reason God gave the commandments was to show us that we can't keep them and that to show us that we're we're dirty sinners so that would have been the perfect place for the Bible to say it the Bible could have said you know the Torah is great it is sweet it is delicious it's wonderful but don't get too excited about it because you can't keep it anyway and it was only given to show you that you're a filthy sinner our Bible never says that that's simply the claim that Christian missionaries make our Bible tells us that the Torah that we have is eternal our Bible tells us in Psalm 19 that it's perfect and it restores our souls and it doesn't need any improvement to have another Bible given to us