Why was John Baptist considered so great a prophet? Even Josephus and the early rabbis recorded him as such. By the time of Josephus, John was long dead, and his message had been that a “mightier than I” was soon to come. Yet if Jesus was not that “mightier than I” that John referred to, the Baptizer was hardly a great prophet. Not a great prophet? How could he be if he had been wrong? For John to have been a great prophet, a mightier than he had to have come soon after him. We have only one recorded: Jesus.

   John wrote nothing in the name of the LORD for our study and guidance today. Very little is recorded in the synoptic gospels. Yet the Lord himself said no greater a prophet had arisen. Why? Because more than a prophet was John, for he was all the prophets condensed to one. No prophet had been foretold in scripture. All scripture pointed to the great works of God and the coming Redeemer. No prophet merited mention. It was they who proclaimed the coming of the Lord. On only one occasion was a prophet foretold: Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts.

   Why so great? The messenger was to prepare the way. The fact is sublimely recorded: John turned the hearts of the sons to the fathers, that is, he turned the Hebrews back unto their own faith, back unto what all the prophets declared. John taught them to have a right heart and prepare. He distilled for them what was the sum total meaning of all the scriptures. Repent-- turn from their ways and walk justly. The significance of this is connected to the only bit of actual prophetic knowledge that he was given: that the mighty one was soon to come, “whose shoelaces I am not fit to loosen.”

   The significance of a prophetic fulfillment is obviously nil if the people don’t know anything about it. John preached to a poor, weary and very ignorant people the background of their own faith. The people, mostly illiterate, heard sermons only on the Sabbath, and it is then that they heard the scriptures read and preached. Much was observances. John came preaching the one to come, the redeemer mentioned in the very first benediction of the Amidah. He spoke of justice. He told them to have a right heart behind all they do. He preached the law as God intended and not as the Pharisees extrapolated. An ignorant people were brought out of centuries of interpretation and ignorance. The upshot was that they understood a Messiah was indeed proclaimed from the very days of Moses. They were also convicted of their heartless, ritual-only behavior. John rebuked them for their foolish reliance on their flesh. Merely because they were Abraham’s descendants did not mean they would inherit God’s favour.

   Like the major prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, John came within 40 years before massive destruction.

   Not since that time have the Hebrews been as ignorant of their own background again, and this most definitely includes Messianic Jews. Israel of old was not so corrupt because of idols but because they mixed them with the name of the LORD and did what was right in their own eyes. They confessed the name of God, but did abominations in his sight and corrupted his way. Though Messianic Jews say “Yeshua,” they have a largely Gentile or Pentecostal image of him. Mainstream Jews don’t even know what a messiah is for.

   Thus God must raise the calling again for all Hebrews. For this generation that is now being born shall see a very different world 40 years from now: a world coming through upheaval; they shall see an Israel emerging from the brink of disaster into a slow restoration in which it must stand alone. People can guess that massive upheaval is coming. That is not hard. But the restoration and the world that is coming after no one is prepared to consider.

   Jews have completely forgotten who they are. They don’t know what a messiah is for anymore, what he is to redeem; and if one is still expected anymore what he is to be like, what is he is to do and how he is to be revealed. This is a statement of fact. Rabbis don’t know how to teach it, and often their words change considering who they are around and how rich the patron is.  They have become guardians of customs and culture. This kind of Judaism is like some Elk’s Club—the dreaded Club Jew— members only. In fact, none of them knows what Judaism is exactly. It is almost not even a religion. It has changed and adapted, split and been rewritten.

Every incarnation of it has the praise of its own lackeys. You challenge one of these besservissers, they get mad and threaten to go ask their rabbi, a clear sign they do not know the scriptures.

   The LORD declared through Jeremiah (31):

     Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:  But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

     Anyone who has to proffer their rabbi doesn’t know the scripture, and certainly God has not written his law in their heart. And yet that is Judaism today. It has become the off-scouring of generations of Motl the Miller’s son and their accumulated and amalgamated ideas on what to make Judaism. Yeshiva traditions have become nothing more than the accumulation of a thousand or more years of adjustment, a place where all the Motls have made the accumulated will of God.

     Hebrews haven’t been blind to this. There have been grass roots movements. The Hasidic movement began in the 18th century with a simple, polite, mystically inclined lime digger named Israel ben Eliezer, later known by the Hasids as Bal Shem Tov, “master of the good name.” The Hasidic movement was a massive reaction against the stifling Rabbinic teachings in ritual, nitpicking observances and traditions that were questionable and daily life that was without heart. Today, Hasids prize themselves on being “true Jews.” But they are in fact the spiritual descendants of what became a weird and now passé Polish mysticism similar to such Greek and Orthodox mysticism as like that practiced by the madman Rasputin. This mysticism eventually overwhelmed the movement, earning the Hasids excommunication (which they gladly like to forget today). Indeed, the Gaon of Vilna, Elijah ben Solomon excommunicated all the Hasids in 1772, sighting pantheism and excessive devotion to the tsadikim—the guru leaders called Rebbes or Grand Rabbi.

   These peasant polish Jews (and Ukrainian Jews) had prophets and clairvoyants. One, Jacob Isaac of Lublin (died 1815) declared that the Napoleonic Wars were a prelude to Messianic redemption . . .but the clairvoyant failed. Supposedly, he even said the Messianic’s advent could be hastened with magic.  It never came, but the Hasids continued to follow their Rebbes. The major thing that eventually came was the Holocaust, which none foresaw and which wiped out millions of Jews, many of them Hasidic. None of their prophets amounted to true prophets, none declared anything in the name of the LORD. It was all mystic self-deception. One Brislever Hasid has a website in which he considers that Jesus’ healing acts were done by Kabbalistic magic. He forgets the words of Joseph or Daniel; that there is a God in heaven from which comes this power. It is not of men.

     Mainstream Judaism today is filled with just as many who are ignorant of the word of the LORD. Two thousand years of festering Motls have built up strange ideas, evident even in Maimonides’ time when he penned what are the 13 basic points of being Jewish. One of them is believing that the “oral law” was also given to Moses at Mount Sinai but merely not written down. How terrible that even Moshe ben Maimon was ignorant of the origins of the oral law. When the Dead Sea Scrolls were uncovered and examined in 1948 -, proof came that thousands of ancient Jews (the Essenes and the entire Sadducean sect) derided the laws of the Pharisees, the founders of Rabbinic Judaism, declaring them to be “false” and the Pharisees to be “extractors of false laws.” It reduced one of Rambam’s 13 points to merely a lie that he didn’t know was a lie. Those who began it, for all their insistence on 613 laws to attain righteousness, broke the very simple law of “thou shalt not bear false witness;” and thou shalt not add to the laws of God.

   Where are we today now? Well, millions of Hebrews do not attend synagogue and ultimately identify themselves with being secular. In other words, just Hebrews. Why should one wish to be a part of an establishment that is itself steeped in falsehood and the byproduct of men tailoring and adjusting it?

   Indeed, how many Jews even know they are Hebrews? Is Jew a religion, a people-- what? Some try and figure out how one is Jewish but also apostate. Jew and Judaism have become separate -- Jew as opposed to a follower of Judaism. One would be the ethnic Jew-- the Hebrew-- the other could be any Hebrew plus convert or proselyte who is a part of mainstream Judaism. Everyone who branches off is an apostate. It is a group thing, and the majority leadership decide. Minorities are splinter groups.

   Yet according to the Scriptures, Rabbinic Judaism is a splinter group, the survivors of the destruction in 70 AD. Ah, but what do the scriptures matter anymore? They are unclear and general statements for the majority in authority to interpret, are they not?  The laws of Moses are “five slim volumes,” as one gross lackey declared to me once, thinking he was being the ever-informed synagogue attendee. Go with the flow and the flow has been Rabbinic Judaism.

   But the flow has changed course, leaving Rabbinic Judaism as an island. The number of Hebrews now describing themselves as “secular” Jews -- i.e. Hebrews only-- is so great, mainstream Judaism cannot regard them as apostates. They are just “not practicing” Jews. All it takes now is a massive religious awakening amongst these non practicing Jews to suddenly tip the scales and make “mainstream” Rabbinic Jewry the minority it began as before the destruction of the Second Temple. A biblically centered reawakening amongst Jews would relegate mainstream Judaism to a strange sect in itself, one excessively devoted to Rabbis and their excuses and gezeirah.  

   Mercifully, the majority of Jews have become just Hebrews again. They can now read the covenant for themselves and discover the Covenant was with the Hebrews. It cannot be adjusted by man. It has been ordained by the mouth of God.

     Let us begin the call of Elijah. Let those ready to carp take heed. This action is done in the name of the LORD God of Israel. Not a rabbi’s, a movement’s, a Rebbe’s or an interpretation. The words of the LORD shall now be declared so that the hearts of the sons turn to the fathers and the fathers turn to the sons. Despite the unschooled and unusual assertions by many in “Judaism” about splinter groups, the covenant is with the Hebrews. It is never dissolved, not by act, omission or waver, not by uncircumcision, apostasy or heresy. The Hebrews are now reminded of the covenant:

   The living God spoke to Abram, our father, in visions.

The Beginnings chapter 17

   And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect. And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly. And Abram fell on his face: and God talked with him, saying, As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee. And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God. And God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant therefore, thou, and thy seed after thee in their generations.

   This is the covenant. It is not obtained by any work. The sign of this is circumcision on the males only at the 8th day after birth. , so that there is no doubt that it is hereditary and not a work. If that circumcision is not performed, only the sign of the covenant is not performed; the covenant is still intact. In Genesis 15 God warned and promised of a future event: And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.

When we came out of Egypt and wandered in the desert 40 years, we did not perform circumcision, even under Moses. Joshua: 5: And Joshua made him sharp knives, and circumcised the children of Israel at the hill of the foreskins. And this is the cause why Joshua did circumcise: All the people that came out of Egypt, that were males, even all the men of war, died in the wilderness by the way, after they came out of Egypt. Now all the people that came out were circumcised: but all the people that were born in the wilderness by the way as they came forth out of Egypt, them they had not circumcised.

   At Horeb Moses relayed it plainly to the people that if we walked after other gods or forsook God for our own ways we would be removed from the land of Israel and scattered throughout the whole earth. We would be slaughtered and be in fear of our life. If we returned unto the LORD, no matter where we were he would draws us unto him. Moreover, God would send a greater prophet than Moses that would be the only prophet through which he would speak clearly. If we did not hearken unto him God would take vengeance. The LORD thy God shall raise up to thee a prophet of thy brethren, like me; him shall ye hear: according to all things which thou didst desire of the LORD thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, We will not again hear the voice of the LORD thy God, and we will not anymore see this great fire, and so we shall not die. And the LORD said to me, They have spoken rightly all that they have said to thee. I will raise up to them a prophet of their brethren, like thee; and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them as I shall command him. And whatever man shall not hearken to whatsoever words that prophet shall speak to them, I will take vengeance on him.

   See Men & Brethren for more of this. Both the song of Moses, his book of Job and all the prophets made it plain and developed exactly who this “prophet” would be. (See Messianic Prophecies). All made it clear God would walk among us at a specific time, beginning in Galilee. This is Jesus the Messiah. This is not a Christian interpretation. Gentiles don’t even know how to tell you this stuff anymore. The Gentiles have corrupted the very memory and meaning of him, and Messianic Jews sometimes don’t do much better. Such topics as above are dealt with on many pages on this site, so it is not necessary to be redundant here. We will stick to the calling of the covenant.

     Suffice it to say that God revealed his glory at Horeb to plainly intimidate us, so that we would understand he is great and he is to be glorified. Also, it set the stage for us to understand that one must come that we can see because man cannot bear the glory of God. It set the stage for what he always intended: that he would walk among us. So first at Horeb he set the precedence of how great he is and man is to take heed. There he moved Moses to hint at us in his song of departure that he would walk among us. (See Men & Brethren)

       Abraham walked perfectly before God without the laws and ordinances, without the signs and customs. He walked perfectly with God because of faith, because he being a simple old man believed God that he would give him a son. Nothing was too hard for God. Moses was faithful in all his generation before God, though he would not circumcise the children of Israel. He loved God. As a body, Israel was promised that a son would be born to us called Mighty God and Everlasting Father. Micah declared him born in Bethlehem, “he who is from everlasting.” Is it so hard that God should do this for himself? But we did not believe as Abraham did. God cannot walk amongst us as one of us, we declared.

     All scripture speaks of this and predicts what shall happen, even the fact Israel as a body would not be gathered unto the LORD (Isaiah 49) and that the Gentiles would believe. And now, saith the LORD that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the LORD, and my God shall be my strength. And he said, It is too small a thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.

Isaiah 9

For one who was in anguish there will be no gloom. In the former time he treated the land of Zebulon and the land of Naphtali with contempt, but in the latter time he will make it glorious, by way of the sea, beyond the Jordon, Galilee of the Gentiles.  The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. On those who lived in the land of deep shadows, the light has shined. You have expanded the nation, you have increased its joy.  They rejoice in your presence, as with the joy at harvest, as people cheer when they divide spoil. For the yoke of their burden and the pole on their shoulder, the rod of their oppressors, thou hast broken, as in the day of Midiam. For every boot tramping in the tumult and the garments rolled in blood will be burned for fire. 

           For unto a child is born, unto us a son is given. The government will be upon his shoulders. He shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.  Of the expansion of his government and peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David, to establish it and to sustain it with justice and righteousness from now on and forever more. The zeal of the LORD of Hosts will do this.

   A strange world of teaching has arisen since the temple was destroyed denying all this.  Now the majority has broken off from Jewry to take up nothing. Therefore return. Abraham and Moses were faithful and they administered the covenant according to God’s heart: merciful and substantive, not by appearance. The purpose of the signs were for instruction. They were not an end in themselves. They do not create a right heart nor do they ensure it. Moses told you to look forward to the one to come, and to believe and hearken unto him.

   Is this the preaching of Christian proselytizing? How disgusting. No, this is turning the hearts of the children to the fathers and the hearts of the fathers to the children-- all Hebrews aware of their past and destiny. Listen, God is real. The Gentile Christians are strangely calling him a Trinity. Messianic Jews try and soften the shock of this on Jews by calling it a Triunity. Both are not found in scripture or the New Testament. They don’t understand he walked amongst us.

   God is not commanded by men, nor is he given form by the interpretation of men. The exact nature of God is reflected in his greatest achievement, mankind, in that we are made in his image so we can understand him. We know what love is. Man cannot be greater than God. If you know how to love all that which is your own then you know how to love God more. If you are keeping 613 laws thinking this will ensure the resurrection and God’s pleasure, you have broken them. If you follow the laws of God for gain then you have broken them, for you sought God by gain and not by love.

   When 10 men say you are drunk, you better lie down. When millions of Jews have forsaken the synagogues, the leadership best take note. They do not stand in scripture; they can’t even explain basic points of what is a Jew; they neither declare in the name of God what truth is nor do they warn or foretell of judgment, and they certainly cannot explain 1,976 years of Diaspora, persecution and holocausts. “It’s for our righteousness.” But all of scripture still exists, and it says the opposite. They can’t blame those who have departed as apostates. Scripture declares them apostates. Motl the Miller’s son doesn’t become God’s spokesman because he gets indoctrinated in the traditions of men and repeats them without thinking. Their teachings are often petty and their prophets have failed. Their training in traditions has made them unnatural. They cannot even apply the same standard of love to God as they require from their own children.

   God is not found in the preaching of minutae minhag and gezeirah. Each soul must find God upon the obvious path: “Thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thy heart. . .” Don’t fool yourselves. You know what love is. You cannot love God and call him a liar. All scripture declares he would come.

   Some Messianic Jews have arisen to preach to a Jewry contaminated with false impressions about Christianity and old hatreds. In order to reach Hebrews, Messianic Jews make him more palatable by using Hebrew: Yeshua. In substance, however, they preach a Pentecostal “brother yid” a la the attitudes of the Christian sects that are big into Jew proselytizing and Jesus Christ Super Star: “As soon as I prayed to him I got fertile and had umpteen rug lizards” or “I put a bible in my hotel chain and my profits increased by 30 per cent the first month.” You get the picture: bless a Jew, use God for profit, and you will get a gift from God. That crowd. They preach their Jewishness, the glory of Israel as an institution, and hang out at Baptist churches.

   Others have seen the fallacy of this and are repelling at such Gentile sects and their selfish motivation for trying to convert Jews. Many have moved into an Biblical Jewry, preferring not even to be called Christian though they believe Jesus is the Messiah. Many Christians don’t understand this, locked as they are into thinking this is still 2000 years ago. They forget 2000 years have elapsed since the apostolic New Testament books were written, in which the church has committed gross abominations, besmirching the name of Christ. They are still stuck in formulas and events of Judaea of 2000 years past. They detest long dead Jewish temple leaders, not realizing they have more than equaled their corruption by today. Hail Jerusalem! Hail Rome! Who stinketh the most?! to paraphrase a famous line.   

   But the Jewish preaching of Jewish culture has not won over converts nor should it. Major proponents of Messianic Judaism have simply added a Messianic twist to the same Pharisaic method that destroyed Judaism under the Rabbis. One major proponent used Christ’s words against the Pharisees in Matthew 23: 23 “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.” He noted that the tithing of mint and cumin is not biblical law, but Pharisaical or Rabbinic traditions. Therefore Christ was teaching that one enforces a