Video Transcript
Hey everybody. Alright. I told you that I would come back with a video talking a little bit about the Red Heifers, and there’s a lot to talk about, but I want to make it simple.
I want to dispel a couple of little myths that have been circulating around out there because there was a lot of excitement rolling up to Passover, and the question of, “Oh my goodness, are they going to sacrifice these cows and kick off the building of the third temple?” So a couple things:
Number one, you need to recognize that these are very sincere Jewish people who are not trying to reestablish the creation of a temple in order to resume temple sacrifices of slaughtering animals. Actually, if you go to the Temple Institute’s website, it tells you very clearly everything that they’re wanting to do. The red heifers are for a ceremony on the Mount of Olives where (Hey, if you’re an animal rights activist, close your ears, okay?) they’re going to kill the red heifers, they’re going to burn them down and get ashes. Ashes will be mixed with water, and this will purify the people for Levitical service in the temple so that God can minister to people.
This is the heart of what’s in these Jewish people, is that they want to create a temple for all nations – a place for everybody can come and pray and experience the divine presence. So this isn’t necessarily about animal sacrifice to atone for sin. That’s number one.
Number two: As I mentioned, this is a small number, a small group of Jewish people, not numerically, but percentage. So they’re Orthodox Jews, they’re religious, but there’s a lot of religious Orthodox Jews that totally disagree with what they’re doing. So you need to understand that their actions are not the actions of the entirety of the Jewish community. So you need to just keep that in mind that this isn’t just “The Jews” doing all of this. This is even very controversial in the Jewish world. And I don’t mean to disparage these people at all because they’re friends of ours, and I was actually there when they chose the red heifers on the ranch in Texas, and I saw them in Israel. And so they’re sincere people and they have a very clear vision about how they believe that they can bring God’s presence on earth. So this is why they’re doing this.
Lastly, I want to say this, that I think the most important thing, and the thing that kind of saddens me and disappoints me the most is that in this whole conversation, it’s mainly Christians talking about Jewish people. Very, very infrequently have I actually heard Christians talking with Jewish people about the third temple, about the sacrifice of the red heifers. And I just want to encourage you, don’t fall into this objectification of Jewish people by talking about them and not with them. Reach out to Messianic Jews, reach out to non Messianic Jews and have a conversation. Get to understand what it is that they’re thinking about what God’s doing on Earth. Because the more we just project and objectify the Jewish people as end-times pawns on our little apocalyptic chess board, then we’re missing the heart of God. We’re missing God’s heart for people. And God’s heart, for the Jewish people especially, is to love them, deliver them, bring them into relationship with him, make their lives peaceful and full of his presence.
So let’s start talking with Jewish people and not talk about Jewish people in the Christian world. And let’s really be careful not to get too fascinated with all these little pieces about what is this going to do and when is the third temple and when is Messiah going to come back. Have the conversation with Jewish people, pray for the Jewish people. They’re going through trauma in Israel after everything that’s happened. And if we appear to be people that are only interested in the little things that they’re doing to create geopolitical tension that’s going to bring back the Messiah, we’re missing God’s heart. So let’s pray for the Jewish people. Let’s pray for Israel, and if you have any more questions about this, please just let us know in the comments or send us an email. God bless you guys.
