WHY MISSIONARIES TARGET JEWS? Understanding What Makes Evangelical Christians Tick - Rabbi Skobac

[Music] good evening and uh we're going to begin now the first of our 15 sessions in our series on Jew the Jewish response to Christian Missionary so one of the greatest miracles in history has been the survival of the Jewish people if you try to find any remnant of the ancient Egyptians or moabites or Hittites or Philistines or Assyrians or Persians or Babylonians or the Greeks or Romans you can only do so at a museum that's the only place you're going to find the these people but what makes our survival what makes the survival of the Jewish people more incredible is that we don't possess any of the factors that would assist in the long-term survival of a people for example unlike the Indians or the Chinese who have a billion people in their Nation Jews have always been an extremely small people hovering around 14 15 16 million throughout our history the Bible actually describes us as the smallest of the Nations the smallest of the people but that's not a great factor for long-term survival you can't afford to really lose too many people if you only have 15 million if you have a billion people in your Society so you can lose some it's not going to be a dire threat to your ability to survive another Factor unlike a country like Switzerland which is isolated and inaccessible our country is at the Hub of the world and everyone wants a piece of it everyone has wanted a piece of it it's been the it's been conquered the land of Israel has been conquered numerous times by various different powers throughout history and for most of our history we haven't even been living on our homeland we've been exiled from it being exiled from your land is also not a positive factor to ensure long-term survival another factor is that we are certain certainly not a very popular people loved by everyone on the contrary we have been the most despised and hated people in the entire universe wherever we've landed across the globe people hate the Jews it's been described as history's longest hatred now this hatred has not only resulted in bearing in insults and negative press there's been massive persecution economic isolation murderous pums and genocidal efforts and part of what has made our survival even more difficult have been the Perpetual attempts to destroy our culture and our traditions this has included the Banning of our religious practices by the helenistic Greeks by the Imperial Romans by the Russian Communists and of course there have been ongoing and massive attempts to convert US to the religions of Islam and Christianity it's amazing that we still have a Jewish people people thriving today in the world now today most Christians in the world today by and large don't actively seek to sway Jews to embrace their faith it's not all Christians about half of the Christians in the world today are associated with the Roman Catholic church and then there there are various Orthodox Church churches the Greek Orthodox Russian Orthodox Etc these groups are not involved in trying to convert Jews however even though again the majority of Christians are not seeking to convert Jews today there's one huge exception and those are Evangelical Protestants who number in the hundreds of Millions and they have been totally obsessed and driven to convert the world's 14 million Jews approximately 14 million Jews there are well over a thousand different Christian Ministries and organizations solely dedicated to seeking the conversion of the Jewish people it's it's quite amazing a huge technology hundreds of websites seminars books all trying to help Christians reach Jews and convert Jews I just brought four along with me as an illustration sharing Israel's Messiah by John fiser it's been around for a while this book again trying to train Christians on how they can be more effective at reaching their Jewish friends and neighbors another book what to say when they say I'm Jewish what to say when they say I'm Jewish again an entire book by Fenton Ward on how to convert Jews to Christianity another book by mosha seal Rosen witnessing to Jews witnessing is the Christian term for sharing your faith for helping other people understand why they should embrace Christianity that's referred to by Christians as witnessing they're being a witness for Jesus practical ways to relate the love of Jesus and then a book by Mitch testman called to the Jew first a textbook on Jewish evangelism this is just a handful and there are many many many more so the question is why why is there such an obsession by Protestant evangelicals to convert Jews so before we try to answer that question let's first try to understand who these Christians are what are Evangelical Protestants so the truth is they are not a monolithic group I mentioned there are hundreds of millions they're not all exactly the same there are numerous distinctive subgroups within this larger group that we'll be discussing over the next 15 weeks but there are certain things that they all have in common there are certain things that all evangelicals hold in common number one is the belief that their Bible again for Christians their Bible is what they refer to as the Old Testament or the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament the Greek scriptures but the Christian Bible includes the Old and New Testaments and Christians Evangelical Christians believe that their Bible is the inherent word of God meaning that it has no errors in it and every word was revealed by God wasn't made up by human authors and this is significant because the other groups within the larger world of Christendom for example liberal Protestants do not believe that their Bible is the word of God they believe the Bible was composed by human beings written by human beings possibly inspired people 2 or 3 thousand years ago but they don't believe that the Bible contains the direct revelation of God the second Factor the second feature that typifies Evangelical Christians is their belief that each human being has a need to become born again which means that as an adult as a thinking adult a person needs to seek a personal relationship with God which for the Christian they understand God as a trinity so it's the Father the Son Jesus and the Holy Spirit but they don't believe that you can be born a Christian they don't believe that because you were born into a Christian family that makes you a Christian they believe that a person has to embrace this faith in a very personal way and that personal decision to embrace Jesus and the entire New Testament Doctrine that's called in their terms becoming born again meaning that a person had their physical birth and now once they have found Jesus and they accept him as their lord and savior they now become born again in a spiritual way and thirdly the evangelicals have a commitment to evangelism hence the name Evangelical evangelism means from the word Evangel the good news or sharing the good news the good news basically from a Christian point of view is that Jesus is the savior and that if you accept him all your sins are forgiven and you will go to heaven when you die and be there with God forever and so from a Christian Evangelical perspective there is a commitment to sharing their faith with others the first thing the first statement that you find in the Christian Bible by Jesus is in chapter 4 in the gospel of Matthew verse 19 where he says to Two Brothers follow me and I'll make you the Fishers of Men these are the first words out of the mouth of Jesus follow me and I'll make you the Fishers of Men meaning that you these two brothers were fishermen they were out on the boat trying to catch fish but now Jesus says now you're going to become the Fishers of Men you're going to go out and try to bring people into AR movement and actually at the very end of the Gospel of Matthew this is the first of the four biographies of Jesus there were four biographies of Jesus in the Christian Bible m Matthew Mark Luke and John at the end of The Book of Matthew after Jesus has been crucified and killed by the Romans Christians believe that he came back from the dead he rose from the dead this is obviously obviously something that is not universally believed but Christians believe it and in the gospel of Matthew it says that after he came back from the dead Jesus gave his followers what they referred to as the Great Commission where he tells them go out into the world and Make Disciples of the entire world here's a mandate to go out and try to convert people so these are the three factors the three qualities that are shared by all Evangelical Christians the belief that their Bible is the word of God the need the belief that a person needs to be born again to consciously Embrace Jesus as their savior as an adult or a thinking person at least and finally a commitment to spreading their faith a commitment to evangelism so the question we want to understand this is our goal for tonight really is to try to understand what makes these people tick why are they so interested in converting others why what drives them so in the Christian Bible probably one of the best known verses is from the fourth gospel the Gospel of John chapter 3 verse 16 where it says for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him would not perish but have eternal life this is considered to be sort of the aorta of the Christian Bible this sums it all up that God sent his son into the world this is the idea in Christianity of the Incarnation that God took on human form he came into this world in the body of a human being called Jesus and God sent his son to this world so that anyone who would believe in him would not perish which means you will not be disconnected from God you will not spend your eternity in hell you will not be lost but you'll be saved this is the idea that you will have eternal life and so for Christians what gets their motor running is this verse is John 3:16 they believe that every other human being in the world unless they come to Jesus they will perish and they will not have eternal life Christians see the world as caught up between those who are saved and those who were lost and we see this idea repeated many times in the Christian Bible so later on in the same chapter of the Gospel of John in chapter 3:36 John says he who believes in the son has eternal life but he who does not obey the son shall not see life but the wrath of God abides in him as well the first well not the first that come out I'm sorry the in in chronological order the First Gospel is usually considered to be Mark although it appear second in the Christian scriptures so in the gospel of Mark chap 16 verse 16 says the same thing he who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned meaning that you face any eternity in hell and then finally I mean I I could share dozens of verses but I just want to share enough that you get the point that in the Gospel of John 14 verse 6 Jesus says I am the way and the truth and the life no one comes to the father but through me so what this is saying is that it is impossible to have a relationship with God unless a person goes through Jesus it's impossible to have a relationship with God unless a person goes through Jesus I'm going to share with you the introduction to this book that I held up before to the Jew first and this is written by fellow named Tom huckle and he writes about the first day he was working as a missionary in Philadelphia for the Jewish Mission Society actually it was called the hanil house and he writes about going out with the author of this book Mitch testman and he says the first day that I started as a fulltime missionary Mitch testman drove me to a Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia we got out of the car and walked up to the fence I couldn't help but notice the many tombstones with common Jewish last names many had the Star of David on them at that point Mitch asked me a question that I'll never forget he said Tom how many of these Jewish people do you think died without knowing the Lord it was as if a magnet Drew my eyes and now my heart with them back to gaze at the Tombstones once again I shuddered at the very thought of what his words meant at the same time however I suddenly found myself feeling very fortunate to be saved without even waiting for my answer Mitch turned to me and said well then I guess we have a lot of work to do so you see what motivates the Christian is the idea that people who die with out coming to know Jesus Will basically perish in Hell forever and they feel a moral ethical responsibility to share their faith with these people but now we're left with another question because if everybody in the world is damned without Jesus every human being regardless of who you are why is there an over-the-top focus and totally disproportionate focus on the Jewish people as I mentioned there are over a thousand different missionary groups that are focused on Jews now there are more than a 100 times more Muslims in the world than Jews there's 1.5 billion Muslims in the world 1.5 billion Muslims if we were to basically have the same number of missionary organizations to reach Muslims that are dedicated to reaching Jews there should be a 100,000 100,000 Christian organizations targeting Muslims there isn't even a fraction of the 1,000 that they have targeting Jews there are one point . 35 billion Hindus in the world 1.35 billion Hindus you don't have nearly a 100,000 Christian Missionary organizations targeting Hindus very few there's a half a billion Buddhists in the world over 500 million you don't find a proportionate effort that is directed to Jews directed towards Buddhists the effort to reach Jews is way out of proportion to the number of Jews in the world why is that so there are several reasons I wanted to share number one is that for the Christian their Bible points them directs them to the Jews Jews and not really to other people let's look again at the Christian Bible again which includes the Hebrew scriptures what they call the Old Testament and the Greek scriptures the New Testament so if you look at the the Old Testament the Hebrew scriptures we call the Jewish Bible virtually all of it is focused on Jewish people the whole story is God's relationship with Israel beginning with the Patriarchs and then as the nation develops and they're enslaved in Egypt and the exit is from Egypt and God brings them to the promised land and the history of being in the promised land and exiled and then coming back and all the prophets that God sends to the Hebrew people to the Jewish people the Hebrew Bible is a book centered around the Hebrew people the children of Israel the Jewish people and how are the Jewish people seen in the Hebrew scriptures so in the book of Exodus 4:22 God refers to them as my son my firstborn God says my son my firstborn is Israel and God speaks about the Jewish people when he blesses Abraham he says to Abraham that I'll bless those who bless you and I'll curse those who curse you and throughout the Hebrew Bible God speaks about the Jewish people as his chosen people that the Jews are his witnesses that we're supposed to be a holy nation and a kingdom of priests we're supposed to be a light unto the Nations the Hebrew Bible doesn't just have a people called the Hebrews or the Israelites or the Jews they're very special people and to the Christians this is something that's significant this something that distinguishes Jews from Buddhists or Hindus or Muslims or Janes or bahis or siks and then when you get to the Christian Bible when you get to the new test Testament the Greek scriptures so we know that ultimately after the death of Jesus Christianity developed a Global Outreach the idea of going to the entire world and sharing Jesus with them however when Jesus was alive his Focus was exclusively exclusively with Jewish people and many people don't know this but any Christian that takes the Bible seriously would certainly know this if we go to the Book of Matthew so in chapter 10 Jesus now the very beginning of his ministry he tells his disciples says these 12 Jesus sent out after instructing them saying do not go in the cities of the Gentiles do not go to the Gentiles do not enter any of the cities of the Samaritans but rather go to the lost sheep of the House of Israel you see Jesus directs his followers to do what not to go to the Gentiles not to go to the Samaritans only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel and he repeats this later on in Matthew chapter 15 actually a very interesting story where there's a Canaanite woman who is asking Jesus for help and he's not really so interested in helping her he ignores her and he says to her in chapter 15: 24 this is in Matthew again I was sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel I'm not going to deal with you he says to her but she came and began to bow down before him saying Lord help me she she keeps on persisting and he says to her it's not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs that's what he says to her right he's here to feed the Jewish people he's here for the lost sheep of the House of Israel she's not Jewish and he says to her it's not fitting to take the food of the children and to throw it to the dogs finally she keeps on persisting and he sees that her faith is great and so he helps her but you see the emphasis clearly in the Christian Bible initially at least while Jesus was alive was exclusively on reaching out to Jewish people and then even after this so-called Great Commission where they were told well now you have to go and reach the entire world the main author of the Christian Bible after the gospels is the Apostle Paul interestingly someone who never met Jesus and Paul says in the Book of Romans one of his most important writings in chapter 1 verse 16 Paul says for I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes to the Jew first and then to the Greek now if you want to understand why Christians are obsessed more with reaching Jews than reaching other people it's because they see in their own Bible it says to the Jew first and many of these many of these organizations today that seek to convert Jews if you look at their website or at their stationary that's what it'll say on the top to the Jew first that's why we opened up this ministry that's why Mitch tesman named his book to the Jew first that's why he dedicated his life and Tom huckle with him to trying to convert Jews that's why they went to a Jewish cemetery and Paul when he traveled around in his missionary preaching every time Paul came to a new city he would first preach in the synagogues that was what he did he put his money where his mouth is he didn't just say to the Jew first and then to the Greek he first preached to the Jews and then he would preach to the Gentiles so the first reason we're trying to understand why are Christians so obsessed with reaching Jews is that the Bible seems to point them in the direction of Jewish people there's a second reason we know that Christians part of their faith it's an important Doctrine in Christianity is the idea that Jesus has to return as we're going to explain when we have our class dealing with the topic of the Messiah it's clear that Jesus did not fulfill what was expected of the Messiah there was certainly expectations that people had about what the Messiah would do what he would accomplish Jesus accomplished none of it and so Christians basically developed the idea that Jesus will come back he'll return and he will then fulfill all of the Messianic prophecies but some Christians today believe not all some Christians believe that there is something that may get in the way of Jesus returning there may be a caveat and they point to the Book of Matthew CH 23:39 where Jesus says and again we we have to explain that he only spoke to Jews right when Jesus was speaking in his lifetime he didn't speak to Gentile audiences so in Matthew 23:39 Jesus says to the Jewish people for I say to you from now on you will never see me again until you say blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord now it's not entirely clear what that means but what many Christians understand it to mean is that Jesus will not return there will not be a second coming until the Jewish people in great numbers Embrace him so if you want to understand a second reason for the obsession that Christians have with reaching Jewish people is the belief at least among some of them that converting the Jewish people can hasten and even facilitate the return of Jesus there's a third reason I want to discuss and this is a a complicated reason and it's deeply psychological and it's going to take us a little bit of time to unpack it as I mentioned the early Jesus movement was entirely made up of Jews Jesus was Jewish his apostles were Jewish they were all Jews but following the death of Jesus Paul who I mentioned had never met Jesus claims that Jesus appeared to him and appointed him as an apostle to the Gentiles this is what Paul claims that Jesus came to me and he made me he appointed me to be an apostle be the the leader basically of the movement to bring Gentiles into the church and Paul travels furiously all over Asia Minor and is extremely successful in spreading his understanding of who Jesus was now one of the reasons that Paul was probably somewhat successful was that he was able to connect with many of The God fearers Who proliferated Back Then There are estimates that there may have been almost a million of these people that we call Ur Elohim fearers of God who were these people these were non-jews who were very attracted to Judaism they were very impressed with the Jewish people with the Jewish religion with the Jewish Bible very impressed but they didn't ultimately convert probably because it was very difficult to convert it meant that you had to take on the observance of all 613 Commandments for men that included getting circumcised not a very appealing proposition to many people so you had a massive movement a large movement of these non-jews that are called god-fearers but Paul started teaching them that if they accept Jesus they don't need to observe any of the laws of the Torah and they become spiritually Jewish they become spiritually part of God's chosen people so now these non-jews can have their cake and eat it too they can become part of Israel without having to observe the entire Torah now we know that Paul's converts grew rapidly and in the 4th Century the movement of Christianity became by and large the official religion of the Roman Empire but by that time the Jewish followers of Jesus basically disappeared this is an important historical fact that you need to know that the movement began exclusively as a small Jewish group following Jesus but within several hundred years the movement of Christianity is virtually 100% non-jews Gentiles and the Jews basically disappeared they either assimilated into the Gentile church or they went back to traditional Judaism but you don't really have groups of Jews who stayed Jewish observing the Torah and believed in Jesus you don't have that into the fourth fifth centuries it's basically finished and so now that you have a church that has become basically entirely Gentile there's something that began to seriously bother them seriously disturb them and let's try to understand this by way of an analogy if you go to the Book of Genesis bit chapter 42 so we have there the story of Jacob's family dealing with a tremendous famine in Canaan there was a famine all over the world we know that prior to chapter 42 the brothers had sold Joseph the brother that they couldn't stand they sold him as a slave to Egypt they told their father that Joseph was killed by a wild animal and after these amazing events where Joseph interprets various dreams Joseph is appointed Viceroy over all of Egypt because Joseph is the one that saves Egypt he gives them a way of dealing with their famine he tells them to save up their food he Engineers an incredible transformation of Egyptian Society so by chapter 42 Egypt is doing fine but there's no food in Canaan where Jacob and his sons are living so Jacob sends 10 of his sons down to Egypt to secure some food his 11th son Benjamin he doesn't send down because Benjamin is the youngest Benjamin is the other brother the other child of his favorite wife Rachel the other the other son being Joseph as far as Jacob is concerned he thinks Joseph has been killed so he doesn't want to let Benjamin out of his sight so he sends the 11 the 10 older brothers down to Egypt and they come up to meet with Joseph and Joseph of course recognizes them but they don't recognize Joseph and Joseph accuses the brothers of being spies and they can't believe it what do you mean spies we're not spies we're just a normal family from back in Canaan we have a young brother who's living who's back at home with our older father we have another brother who died they said we're not spies we're just a a family so Joseph says look I don't believe you and if you want me to believe you I want you to bring your younger brother down here I want to see this Benjamin this younger brother of yours and so he takes one of the brothers hostage he puts one of the brothers in prison and he sends the other brothers back to Canaan to go bring their brother Benjamin back now of course the brothers realize that Jacob is never going to let Benjamin go he already lost his favorite son Joseph there's only one child left for from his favorite wife Rachel Benjamin's a young little boy he's not going to go down to Egypt so the brothers are in a quandry what are we going to do so there really could have been a very simple solution because Joseph as far as they know he's just some Egyptian Viceroy Joseph doesn't know what Benjamin looks like so they could just get some 12-year-old kid off the street and bring him down to Egypt and pass him off as Benjamin this fellow in Egypt the vice Roy there won't know the difference maybe get him some fake ID so this is a question why didn't the brothers do this why didn't the brothers use this kind of strategy what got in the way of bringing down an impostor for Benjamin and the answer is because they remembered they knew that this vicroy in Egypt kept Shimon their brother Shimon imprison Shimon is not going back with them to Canaan Shimon is in prison and all this Vice Roy would need to do to uncover any fake or trickery would be to take Benjamin and bring him into the prison bring him into the prison if it's the real Benjamin if this is the real Benjamin Shimon is going to jump up out of his bed out of his chair and get all excited he hasn't seen his brother in a long time it's it's my brother he's going to be all excited but if it's not the real Benjamin it's not the real Benjamin what is shimon's reaction going to be the answer is nothing he might look up and then go right back to reading his prison news and this is exactly what began to bother the growing Gentile church because if Jesus really was the Jewish Messiah what why didn't the Jews accept him the Jews didn't even blink it seems as far the Jew as far as the Jewish people were concerned Jesus was a nobody nobody that special he was crucified by the Romans so were about 100,000 other Jews and this thought began to torture the church why didn't the Jewish people accept Jesus after all the Jews were the only ones in the world who had any concept of a messiah the Jews were the ones that were hoping for the Messiah to come the Jews were praying for the Messiah to come there was no one else in the world that even could tell you what is this idea of the Messiah no one else had a Bible and that's where the Jews learned about the Messiah from their Bible and these people that are now part of this church they understand that prior to accepting Paul's invitation to accept Jesus they said we had no clue about the idea of a Messiah before we accepted Jesus we didn't know anything we were totally out of the loop so how do we explain the failure of the Jews they were the world's experts on the topic of the Messiah we were people who knew absolutely nothing we got it right and all the Jews got it wrong so how do you explain this and I think this issue tortured and I think it still does torture many Christians so several answers have been proposed to answer this very disturbing question they might be answers that will shock you but these are the answers that you will hear throughout Christian history the first answer that was given was that you know all things being equal all things being equal of course the Jewish people should have understood that Jesus was the Messiah I mean that from a Christian point of view it's the most obvious thing in the world so what went wrong so the first answer to this question is that the devil Satan blinded the eyes of the Jewish people they were simply unable to see you see this for example in 2 Corinthians 4 it says and even if our gospel is veiled it is veiled to those who are perishing in whose case the the God of this world and the Christian Bible refers to Satan as the God of this world in whose case the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbeliever in that they may not see the light of the Gospel of the glory of the Messiah and then you see the same concept in chapter 3 as well in 2 Corinthians it says but their minds were hardened in the same way that we read in the in the Hebrew Bible in the Torah that God hardened Pharaoh's heart so the Christian Bible says that the minds of the Jew je were hardened for until this very day at the reading of the Old Testament the veil remains unlifted they have a veil that covers their eyes and this this theme of God hardening the Jewish people is repeated in the Book of Romans chap 11 and then you see a reference it's interesting that Paul was originally not a believer in Jesus and it says that when Jesus appeared to him the Christian Bible says that there were scales that fell off of Paul's eyes the idea is that he had been blinded that's why Paul didn't believe and once the scales are removed from Paul's eyes he was able to believe I've had many Christians tell this to me personally they prayed over me Michael the Lord should remove those scales from your eyes and you'll be able to see the truth so this is the first idea that Christians to this day believe very strongly that the Jewish people they' been blinded the Jews have been blinded by Satan and that's what's getting in the way of of the Jewish people seeing the truth about Jesus but then there was a more pernicious idea that developed basically out of a passage from the Gospel of John 8:44 which says not that the Jews were victimized by the devil not that the Jews were blinded by the devil but this is the idea that Jews are the devil that's what it says that's what Jesus says Jesus says in chapter 8 of The Gospel of John you are of your father the devil that the devil is the father of the Jew Jews now why do Christians say this because Christians believe that the truth about Jesus is so obvious the Jews must have known it so there's a Christian belief that the Jews really knew the Jews knew that he was the Messiah the Jews knew that the truth was with Jesus but even though they knew it the truth they denied it now who could be so wicked as to know the truth but to deny it but the Jews so this is the idea not that the Jews were unfortunately blinded by Satan this is the idea that the Jews are so R wicked and evil to the core that they are the devil no one else but the Devil Himself can be so wicked as to deny what they know know to be the truth so these are the two answers that you find throughout Christian history that either the Jews are blinded by Satan or the Jews are Satan but obviously there's a third possibility which is pretty clearly the most reasonable possibility and it's the most likely answer but it's a very disturbing answer why didn't the Jews accept Jesus maybe the Jews were right that would be a reasonable answer after all who should have been right 2,000 years ago Jews who knew the Bible and who knew about the Messiah and who were hoping the Messiah would come who should be right those people or former pagans who had no knowledge of the Bible and who were worshiping Idols who was more qualified to decide to to to reasonably make an informed decision about who the Messiah is so this is a possibility that I think is a terrifying possibility I suspect that for many Christians it it's deep down inside they must once I mean have thought about this possibility cuz what are the Alternatives that the Jews are the devil that they're blinded by the devil maybe the Jews are right you know the there's an old saying when you hear hoofbeats think horses not zebras this is ok's Razor what is the more reasonable possibility that the Jews were right or that the Jews are the devil incarnate so the third reason that Christians are obsessed with Jews is that we are a terrible challenge to their faith I found an amazing quote once from James Christen who was the former General Secretary of the American Baptist Church's National Mission Society and he said after all unconverted Jews make Christians wonder if perhaps Jesus is not the Messiah after all he says it exactly correctly that when Jews don't accept Jesus that makes Christians Wonder Maybe Jesus wasn't the Messiah maybe the Jews had good reason for not believing in Jesus and so we know that psychologically when you have to defend your faith because you feel it challenged the most direct way of Defending Your Faith is by convincing those people who are causing you to question your faith the philosopher Eric Hofer in his famous book the true belever believer writes that the missionary Zeal seems rather an expression of some deep misgivings some pressing feeling of insufficiency at the center it is a search for a final and irrefutable demonstration that our absolute truth is indeed the one and only truth he says the prestiz fanatic strengthens his own faith by inverting others the Creed whose legitimacy is most easily challenged is likely to develop the strongest problematizing impulse and this is exactly what I believe happen with Christianity that the failure of the Jewish people to accept Jesus as the Messiah the these are the expert Witnesses these are the ones that should have known better and the fact that the Jewish people did not accept Jesus is a tremendous challenge to the claim that he was the Messiah and a tremendous challenge to the entire Enterprise of Christianity and so psychologically psychologically there's an incredible need more than the need to convert some Hindu in India more than the need to convert some Muslim in Afghanistan they don't ch challenge the Christian they don't make the Christian think that maybe what we believe isn't true but the Jew the believing Jew who does not accept Jesus challenges the Christian and so as Shakespeare says me thinks the missionary Dost protest too much so what I hope to have accomplished tonight was to explain what makes the missionaries tick what lies behind their incredible Obsession to convert Jewish people and what we will begin studying next week is what are the tactics that are used by Christians to convert Jews and we're going to to focus primarily next week on what we call uh Pho Judaism which means the need to love the Jewish people and uh that'll be our program on Christian Zionism so stay tuned [Music] [Music] [Music]