Can Anything Good Come Out of Youtube?

Youtube is either a poison or a medicine, depending on what you look for in it. I suppose that could be said of anything.

I found out about the many helpful Christian videos on Youtube, and I started watching. It’s a gigantic resource. The videos I like best are the testimonies. Most people who teach about religion don’t know anything, because they’re just passing on gossip they heard from rabbis or priests. People who testify know something. They talk about things they have witnessed.

The Bible was written by witnesses, not scholars.

A person who sits around reading about God all day, without encountering him, is ignorant and has very little useful information to pass on. They don’t know much which is useful, but they’re jam-packed with poisonous fairy tales and lies that can do me harm. Look at the pagan nonsense Augustine poured into the church. Devastating.

I know God. I can say that, even though I am not a good person or what Catholics would call a “saint.” It’s possible for a bad person to know God. If it were not, we would all be doomed. I know God because Jesus visited me twice, and because the Holy Spirit communicates with me every day, numerous times. However screwed up I still am, I am much better off knowing God than knowing ABOUT God. A proper relationship with God is closer than a marriage.

What kind of marriage would you have, if your husband or wife never talked to you?

Are we better than God? We insist on communicating on people we love. Doesn’t he want to communicate with us?

Many, many Christians know God personally.

I found a wonderful Youtube channel called One for Israel. The people who run it are Messianic Jews. They really have their work cut out for them, because they work in Israel. Israel is not America. You can’t build a church there and stand in front of it telling people Jesus is God and then expect things to go smoothly. Israel is full of two kinds of Jews: leftist atheists and religious Jews who absolutely hate Christianity. The resistance the One for Israel people encounter must be something to see.

One Israeli rabbi, in particular, has gone public with very negative remarks about Christianity and Messianics. He created a video in which he said Christianity would be exposed and destroyed, more or less, and that Jesus is in hell, boiling in feces. The latter pronouncement comes from the Talmud. I believe most religious Jews say the passage he refers to is not about Jesus. The angry rabbi is the first guy I’ve ever seen who openly states that Jesus is the subject.

A prominent anti-missionary group, Jews for Judaism, acknowledges that the person said to be boiling in excrement is “Yeshu,” which is an unflattering name many religious Jews insist on using for Jesus (instead of “Yeshua,” a form of “Yehoshua”), but they say it’s a different Yeshu.

The person who supposedly conjured “Yeshu” and found out about the excrement issue was the historical figure Onkelos, a Roman who converted to Judaism. He converted after summoning spirits of the dead to guide him, and “Yeshu” was one of them, along with Titus (destroyer of the temple) and Balaam. Onkelos was very respected, and it is believed he is responsible for one official translation of the Talmud.

I don’t know why a man who committed a great idolatrous sin in order to research Judaism would later be respected, but there is probably a rationale.

Onkelos lived just after the time of Jesus, so he would certainly have known who Jesus was, and he would have had a very negative opinion of him, consistent with the meaning of “Yeshu,” which means a person who led Jews into idolatry. During his time, Messianic Jews were running around the Mediterranean area, preaching in synagogues, trying to get other Jews to accept Jesus. He had to be aware of this, and he would not have been happy about it.

This is all I know. Nothing is certain.

The rabbi’s take is pretty impressive, as negativity goes. It sounds like something I would say about Satan. Hard to improve on it.

I don’t know what kind of reputation this man has in Israel. It may be that almost no one shares his views. Maybe Orthodox Jews think he’s a complete idiot. Judaism, like Christianity, is very fragmented and full of conflict among sects. In any case, it shows that Messianics have some heavy-duty detractors in Israel.

I love the One for Israel channel, for many reasons.

Christianity is largely about what Christians call “strongholds.” A stronghold is a sort of fortification, built to block and demoralize an enemy. A stronghold, from the viewpoint of someone outside it, is a structure which seems impossible to overcome.

There are all sorts of examples of strongholds. I’ll give you one. The Muslims used to believe that the Jewish Messiah, whom they hated, would enter Jerusalem through the Eastern Gate. In order to prevent it, they did two things. They filled the gate with stone, and they put a Muslim cemetery outside of it. Their rationale was that Elijah, presumably a priest, would have to preceded the Messiah when he entered. They believed a Jewish priest could not walk through the cemetery without becoming unclean.

This isn’t a very good stronghold. I’m not God, and I can think of all sorts of ways to get around it. Move the stones. Move the bodies. Enter on a hovercraft if you have to, so you don’t touch the ground. It’s not a great stronghold, but it’s an example. The presence of a mosque and a Muslim shrine on top of the Temple Mount, which rightly belongs to Jews, is a much better stronghold.

The purpose of obstructing the gate was to set up a barrier the Jews could not defeat. That’s the point.

Jericho is a great example of a Biblical stronghold. Its walls were considered invasion-proof. The Hebrews brought them down without lifting a finger. They marched around the walls over and over, and one day God leveled them and gave Jericho to them.

In our personal lives, there are a lot of strongholds. Drug addiction is a stronghold. It’s nearly impossible to beat. They say pedophilia is incurable. If so, that would be a stronghold. People who refuse to entertain the notion that Jesus is God live in strongholds. As strongholds go, the Jewish resistance to Jesus is one of the best. It is extremely discouraging.

God is a destroyer of Satan’s strongholds. Watching the One for Israel testimonies reminds me that no matter how tough a stronghold looks, God has the power to crush it.

Jews usually don’t draw attention to Jewish opinions about Jesus, but when one converts, look out! They can’t tell their stories without telling about the resistance they met from other Jews. One guy says his gentle old grandfather threw a dish at him the minute he came out, cutting his head open and leaving a scar. Another lady says her mom went into a church to get her, and she started beating her. She got home, and her dad joined in. Another person was told he was worse than Hitler. A family member asked if conversion meant the believer was going to become a Nazi.

The Nazism-Christianity connection in the mind of some Jews is extremely bizarre. Did some Christians join the Nazi party of fight for Hitler? Sure. Did many European Catholics, including priests, help Hitler kill Jews? Certainly. That doesn’t make Hitler a Christian, and it doesn’t make Nazism a Christian movement. Most American Catholics vote liberal. Does that make Christianity a leftist movement? Most Jews–something like 90%–vote liberal, and Karl Marx was Jewish. Is Marxism Jewish? Most American Jews are for the division of Israel. Is the division of Israel a Jewish cause? Of course not. You have to have some common sense in this world.

Catholicism has a rotten history. Catholics tortured Jews and American Indians and God knows who else, to persuade them to accept conversion. They raised armies and murdered unbelievers. Catholics are famous for bullying Jews, calling them “Christ-killers” and so on. An awful lot of the negative things Jews feel about Christianity come from their experiences with Catholics, and when Jews criticize Christianity, usually, they criticize things that apply mainly or solely to Catholicism. It’s as though they think all Christianity is Catholicism.

The Bible makes it pretty clear that every human being is a Christ-killer. If you don’t accept responsibility for his death, you’re not a Christian. And where would we be if he hadn’t been killed? The whole “Christ-killer” thing is beyond stupid. I am as responsible for the murder of Jesus as the soldiers who drove the nails.

One Jewish testimony I watched was almost funny. A rabbi converted, and he was rejected. He had to take a menial job, washing dishes for a Christian-hating Arab. He lived on a beach in Israel, in a tent. A bunch of rabbis, including one who is famous, came to visit him in his tent, imploring him to return to the fold. When he refused, they started cursing him and spitting all over him. With friends like that, who needs enemies? I have had people disagree with me, but they don’t make road trips to come to my house and spit on me. Yet.

It’s remarkable to see the things God does in order to reach Jews. For Americans of Christian background, receiving salvation is typically a little dull. You say the prayer, you feel peace, and you feel relieved because you’ve finally surrendered. For Jews, it is often more dramatic than that. They see visions. God works miracles in order to get their attention. They get delivered instantly from addictions. I almost feel envious. In comparision, to American gentiles, salvation seems almost boring.

Muslims and Arabs seem to get even wilder experiences. You can find their testimonies on other Youtube channels. Jesus appears to them. He comes to their bedrooms at night and lights them up. All sorts of things happen. Maybe the nature of Muslims and Arabs is such that they need a little more persuasion.

Speaking of Arabs, I saw an Arab testify on the One for Israel testimony. This guy came from a Christian family, yet he knew nearly nothing about God. He was violent. He killed a man in a fight. Even though he came from a Christian background, he had to encounter God and make a personal commitment in order to be changed. I think most American Christians are like that. They sit in church three times a year, but they don’t know God, they don’t make any effort to change, and they’re on the way to hell.

One of the funny things about Christianity is that it brings Jews and Arabs together in Israel. They worship side by side. They cut out the identity politics. I suppose their new attitude is that “us” is worshipers of Jesus, not Arabs, Muslims, or Jews. It’s an interesting thing. Human beings always talk about a solution to the conflict over Israel, and we discuss stupid ideas like the two-state solution. Christians who actually know God live in harmony with each other; people with conflicting religions do not. They are pitted against each other every day. The real answer to the Mideast problem is Christianity. Unfortunately, it’s not going to happen.

Here is Psalm 133:

Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!

It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron’s beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments;

As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for evermore.

This is not about the two-state solution. It’s about the one-state solution. People can only live in peace when all are ruled by the Holy Spirit. He tells everyone exactly the same thing. He never, ever makes his people disagree. After all, he’s the one who says a house divided against itself can’t stand, and he also said David’s house would last forever.

“Anointing,” the application of ointment, refers to pouring oil over a person as he is installed in an office and given authority. Oil runs DOWN. Authority runs downward from God (a single, undivided, unconflicted source) onto us. Authority can only exist when God commands us; without commands, authority means nothing. Psalm 133 says God’s commandments pour down over his children, from heaven, and that when we obey, we are in harmony, because we are all answering to the same commander.

Jesus calls himself the Prince of Peace. He really is. If we were listening to the Holy Sprit, we would be in alignment with each other, and we would have peace.

Right now we are having terrible racial discord in the US. Blacks and Latins are being pitted against white people. Minority churches have a real problem. They push Marxism and identity politics, and they reject the unity of the Holy Spirit. Most white churches reject the Holy Spirit altogether. If we listened to the Holy Spirit, we wouldn’t be hearing about BLM, La Raza, or the tiny groups of unsuccessful, resentful whites who agitate against minorities.

The answer to Israel’s problems is already available, but it’s going to stay on the shelf, because not enough people want it.

Here’s another thing that surprised me about the testimonies: many of the Jews who spoke said they originally believed ridiculous things about Jesus and the New Testament. For example, many thought Jesus was a Catholic god who had nothing to do with Yahweh. They also thought the New Testament was a Catholic book written by Catholic anti-Semites. Some thought it was a sort of instruction manual for “getting” Jews.

They were amazed to see that the entire New Testament was about Jews and Israel. They were shocked to learn that the disciples and apostles were Jews. Many were surprised to learn that Jesus was Jewish. How can anyone not know that Jesus was Jewish? His name was Yehoshua. I mean, come on. But I’m telling you what they say.

The church was originally Jewish. How can people not know that? The Jewish religious establishment sent people to find and murder early believers, hoping to stamp out the church. They couldn’t do that to gentiles. The Romans would have exterminated them. In the beginning, the conflict between the Jewish establishment and Christianity had nothing to do with gentiles. It was an intramural squabble between Jews who believed in Yahweh. Christianity didn’t become a gentile religion until after it spread among Jews, and the people who first spread it in Israel and abroad were Jewish. Any Jew who complains about Christianity is complaining about something his people started.

They also said they were shocked when they read Isaiah 53, because it seemed to them that Jesus was the only person it could apply to. It’s clearly about the Messiah, but it says he will be rejected and despised, not that he will be an honored king who leads Israel to victory. It says, “He was cut off from the land of the living.” That means the Messiah was killed.

They also talked about the emptiness of a religion that emphasizes rules and study, without the presence of God. Several of them talk about how strange it was to see Christians worship. The Christians they saw weren’t just talking about God or learning rules. They were talking to him directly and enjoying his presence.

I can relate to that, because most churches, especially the older ones like the Catholics and Episcopalians, run services in which smug, effeminate old men stand up front and lecture and perform rites, while the people in the pews grit their teeth and wait for it to be over. I hate church worse than just about anything, but for the presence of God.

We’re supposed to know God personally. The Bible calls his people “children.” What kind of father would let a child live 70 or 100 years without visiting? Come on. Think. Would you do that? You couldn’t. You would hate yourself. You would find it unbearable. You would be ostracized and reviled, even by atheists. Does that mean you’re a better parent than God? Is God a deadbeat dad? I don’t think so!

The Old Testament confirms that we are supposed to know God personally. Look at the Psalms. The writers pant and thirst for God. They beg him to show them his face. They say believers abide IN him. Intimacy, intimacy, intimacy; not rules and aloofness.

What does aloofness in a human parent mean? It means abandonment. It’s abuse, under the laws of every state. You can lose your children by refusing to spend time with them. Courts will literally remove them from your home and give them to other people. Refusing to spend time or be intimate with a spouse has always been considered grounds for divorce; it’s tantamount to adultery. Yet God is guilty of this? Come on. Wake up.

I remember Rich Wilkerson at Trinity Church in Miami, arguing with me, trying to tell me we don’t have to feel anything in our relationships with God. But then this is the same man who asked for an offering at a funeral.

I wonder if he knows what people said about him after that. I doubt it. He surrounds himself with sycophants who see him as a sort of milk cow that has to be managed and babied because it will one day give them money and success. They always smile and tell him what he wants to hear. They said plenty behind his back, however. I heard it!

It’s kind of neat when Jews accept Jesus, because they understand things we don’t. The New Testament is a Jewish book, and knowledge of Jewish culture and history are helpful in understanding it.

Remember Planet of the Apes? Taylor was walking around an archaeological site with the chimps Cornelius and Zira, and he was able to identify and explain artifacts the apes couldn’t understand. He had lived in the world of the people whose home became the site, so he recognized and understood things the apes had dug up. Messianic Jews are like that. Sometimes they understand things about Christianity which we have gotten wrong. For example, they know that baptism is really ritual immersion, which comes from Judaism. Sprinkling water on a baby’s head is not baptism.

I highly recommend the One for Israel channel. It will restore your hope. You will remember that God is still plucking people out of the flames, no matter how powerful Satan is getting.