Cultish: How to Talk to Hebrew Israelites, Pt. 1

The Bible. Is it hard to understand?

When it comes to reading the Bible, the first thing that comes to mind is the fact that this is the Word of God.

The seals have been broken and the truth is here.

And when we go throughout the scriptures, when we go throughout extra-biblical records, we find that the language that God employed, that he used to create the heavens and the earth, was the Hebrew language.

Christ said, I came for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But yet no one, no religious leader, no religious church out here anywhere, can now identify the twelve tribes of Israel. Can we? God is quite simple, but it seems as if man makes understanding of him hard.

What are those mysteries?

The truth of your book. And the truth will make you free. The Hebrew and Bible Academy, you're invited.

Hebrew Israelites and the Language of Identity

All right, welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to Cultish, Entering the Kingdom of the Cults. My name is Jeremiah Roberts. I am one of the co-hosts here. I am normally joined by Andrew, the super sleuth of the show, but he is not here today.

Him and his lovely wife, Casey. Their son, Fimius Sankrant, just came into the world, so they are taking some much-needed time off just to kind of adjust to life to a family of three, including themselves.

So I am, though, super excited because I'll be kind of running the ship today. But I am here back with Oscar Dunlap. You have been on the show with us before. You were in The Hebrew Israelites for around nine years, and the last time you were with us, you were kind of talking a little bit about just Hebrew-Israelite theology and what they believe, but it was kind of through the lens of your story of how you came out of them.

So what we're going to do today is we're going to have just kind of like a primer, and maybe in future episodes we can even go deeper into it, but we just want to have kind of like an apologetic approach, like how do you actually talk to the Hebrew Israelites on the street?

How do you engage with them? And what inspired me to do this episode is that you had done a Facebook post. You're part of Apology at Church, and you typically go out on Friday and Saturday nights. You are now doing passionately what you once did as a Hebrew Israelite, but now with a true gospel of Jesus Christ, and you are out there usually doing some sort of open-air preaching.

And I saw you done a picture on your Facebook, and we'll post it too on our social media, where you're engaging with someone. You can tell it's a very I mean, the pictures are night and day. You see very cool and calm and collected, and the other young man, God bless him, you could tell he is very passionate.

But it also seemed to me and I wasn't there when the conversation happened, but it would seem to me, in that conversation, was he sort of taken back by how well you knew his theology? I mean, I'm trying to his picture's worth a thousand words.

Right, right, right.

Like, bring me into that conversation. How did the conversation take place?

Yeah, so he had stopped earlier, like further up the street, and he was talking to a couple of the guys down there. And they actually sent him my way. I was down there talking to another guy, the guy that's actually standing to the right of me.

I was witnessing to him when this started. So he starts walking up, and he just stands there. He just stands right next to me. So as I'm talking to the one guy, sharing the gospel with him, this guy, the Hebrew Israelite, just stands next to me.

And so after I'm talking for a while, I just turn and I say, what do you think about what I'm saying? And he starts talking a little bit, and I was like, are you a Hebrew Israelite? Just based off his answer, I could hear it.

He's like, yeah, yeah, I'm a Hebrew Israelite. And so that's how the conversation starts. They tell him I was a former Hebrew Israelite. He comes down to hear what I'm saying, hear what I'm preaching.

And so immediately he's like, oh, yeah, I'm a Hebrew Israelite. And so then I start asking him questions. I'm like, oh, you're a Hebrew Israelite, all right. So I already have a method of how to deal with them.

And immediately my first go-to is I'm going to deal with salvation. I'm going to deal with, okay, how do you think that you're saved? And so we start going to Ephesians 2. We start going to a couple of different places in scripture.

But what I was trying to explain to him is I know your doctrines better than you do. I know them better than you do. I can show in the scriptures why you believe what you believe by false interpretation.

But he wasn't even ready with the verses. He was definitely taking it back. He wasn't ready for it. And the conversation kept getting more and more heated until he eventually walked off. He couldn't handle it.

Yeah.

And that is the case sometimes across the board. Sometimes where all you can really do, and Walter Martin talked about this, is you sort of plant seeds of doubt and allow the Holy Spirit to do its work.

And he would talk about that when he would—. There's a story of Walter Martin where when he went into a cult headquarters, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, and he had a conversation with someone who was like two hours.

And he said he got so mad he kicked him out. And he told him if he came back he'd call the police.

Wow.

Turns out that guy, it was what he—he was wrestling with what Walter Martin told him for nearly a decade.

Wow.

And eventually it came to the point where he really—he couldn't get away from it. Eventually God used that to save him and he became born again, which was, you know, that case. But even—I think as Frank Turek also talks about, when you're dealing with a cultist or even really the unbeliever, sometimes the idea is that you're not there to try and convince them.

No.

Or like, ha-ha, I'm going to take my sword and slash you to ribbons.

Right.

Like I want to be able to put a rock, strategically place a little pebble in their shoe.

Right.

And eventually it's like, ooh, what is that?

Exactly.

And eventually—and have them to really ask questions.

Right.

So I'm just curious about this too. And this might be similar too with Mormonism. And I'm more attuned with talking with a lot of Mormons and even ex-Mormons that weren't Jehovah's Witnesses. But I think specifically with Mormonism, there are a lot of—it is a broad field.

And there's a lot of different rabbit trails you can easily get caught down.

For sure.

So I kind of have this sort of linguistic Aikido, right? Immediately someone throws something outside of the essentials, I try and like grab it.

Yeah.

Spin it around to like, who is God? Who is the gospel? How are you saved?

Absolutely.

And you talked about that too. So yeah, it kind of bring me into what are—when you look at the big, broad picture, when you say it being wide, what are some pitfalls to avoid? And then let's get into some of the essentials about what do they believe about the gospel?

Yeah.

And then how do we understand their language barrier? And then we can kind of figure that all out.

It's something similar to Mormons because anytime you're dealing with a cult or a religion that in some way relies upon the Bible for the authority and understanding, you're going to deal with that situation of having that language barrier, right?

They're going to use some of the same terminology as a Christian, and now you have to start redefining. So one thing I'll tell you really quick, one story is I was out there with a brother, and we were handing out tracts.

We're witnessing to people. And some people, as you walk by, there's very quick conversations, and you're trying to get to the point really, really quickly, right? Well, he's talking to a group of guys that I know are Hebrews.

I know these guys, right? And he has such a surface-level conversation with them that he didn't recognize it. So he was a Mexican guy, so they were okay with him as far as they believe he's a Hebrew.

So as he's talking about Christ and he's talking about the Bible, they're nodding their heads.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And he gives them a tract. They walk away. He was like, yeah, seems like some solid Christians. And I was like, no, those are Hebrews. But because he didn't define terms, right, they were in agreement with him, right?

And sometimes if they're not willing to have those engagements, they'll be okay with moving on. But as far as the essentials that I like to deal with, and I'll talk about some of the a lot of the detours that you can get into.

With them, I like to define who Christ is because they don't believe Christ is God in the flesh. They would say he's the Son of God, but it would be more of a henotheistic approach where God is the Father God and Christ and the Holy Spirit are under him, right?

Who is Christ? What is the gospel? We're saved by grace through faith, right, apart from works. And then identity in Christ, right? Because so much of this interpretation of Scripture and who they believe that they are, so much of it is rooted in their belief in their identity as Hebrew Israelites.

So much of it is, right? I would say that's the ultimate presupposition by which they interpret Scripture is we are Hebrew Israelites and everything else kind of revolves around that.

Scripture, Salvation, and the Law

Yeah, so even what you're talking about in relation to identity, just with a couple of videos we have up, we're going to play a clip of one of them in just a moment. You've got some folks, some Hebrew Israelite folks who are doing some passionate preaching, but they're wearing outfits with the emphasis on the color purple.

There's an aspect of that. Then you have some people in, some black Hebrew Israelites in Times Square. They're talking, but they're all wearing red. And of course, they're also using a colorful language that does include the words, please and thank you.

But it is very much related to identity, not in regards just to who you are as a person, but also with how you view the world. So we played a clip earlier from a person who was your previous teacher or mentor, I guess you would say, Elder Rakah.

And he is talking about in that clip, I'm going to teach you, you're going to have a special insight about how to interpret, how to read the Hebrew language, how to interpret the Bible my specific way.

So that correlates too with their identity. So I believe you are correct in stating that. But yeah, go ahead and elaborate more into that if you could.

So I would say what you see with the prophets of Mormonism, what you see in the Catholic Church and the infallibility of the Pope, you see they believe they have a monopoly on the interpretation of Scripture, that they alone can properly interpret the Scripture.

Now, the Mormons, they have a way in which they understand this. And it's Joseph Smith is our prophet. We have the restored gospel. The Catholic Church, they say this is the same church that Christ instituted when he was on the earth.

And we have the same authority from then. But the Hebrew Israelites, it's more like the Mormons where they say, well, we were lost. Right. And now God is waking his people up. Now he is restoring his people and only his people can properly interpret Scripture.

So when he's speaking here, all that he's saying is about your identity and you having the means to understand the Scripture because it's written about you. They would say we are the main characters of the Bible.

It's all about us. Right. And from there, everyone else that wants to know the Bible needs to come learn it from us.

Very much so. So when you talk about just focusing on the main issues, and you have to realize, too, when we're going to play these clips, that if you are encountering someone who is a Hebrew Israelite, they're typically with a group.

They're all in a group. And they kind of have a way in which they talk. They're very loud. They're very passionate. And they'll usually have the one person who's sort of I mentioned, they're kind of the offensive coordinator.

And you have someone else who will typically be holding up the Bible. And they'll be he'll refer to this person. They'll usually yell out a certain verse or two and they'll gather a crowd. In fact, we were together not too long ago, kind of observing that they wouldn't talk to you and especially me.

I wonder why. But yeah. So when we get into like talking about the gospel and also specifically with a conversation you had with a guy on Mill Avenue, when you talk about how are you saved? And again, you got to realize that they are viewing it through their own, their unique identity.

It's really about identity. Yeah. How, how do you, how do you break, ice break that conversation in a language that they can really understand that's palatable for them?

Right. So when it comes to worldviews that rely upon scripture as an authority, that's our reference point now. So like if we're dealing with, if we're dealing with worldviews outside of scripture, we can show them that they can make no sense of logic or they can make no sense of uniformity of nature, things like that, apart from the Christian worldview.

But we're showing them that they, they have a lack of a grounding for these things around us. Right. But with worldviews that deal with scripture and they rely upon scripture, we go to scripture to refute their position.

So we show them that their belief system is contradicted by what God revealed in scripture. So when it comes to a conversation about salvation, that's an easy one. It's all over scripture, right? There's no possible way to be justified before God by the works of the law.

And we see that all over the place, right? We see it in Romans five, we see it in Ephesians two, we see it even in the old Testament, right? All of our righteousness are filthy rags. Isaiah 53, all of us have gone astray.

So what I'm trying to do now is take him through and show him the overall context of what the purpose of the law is. So the first thing that I took him to him was Romans chapter three. And I said, okay, what you as a Hebrew Israelite, who employ the law as a means of salvation, because he was telling me, yeah, Christ does it.

No, essentially Christ's work isn't finished. We have to add something to it. That's essentially what they believe, right? Exactly what Mormon doctrine is, right? Up until you can do no more. And then Christ kicks in and gets you the little nudge that you need.

So with this guy, I'm like, okay, what's the purpose of the law? And he's like, well, the purpose of the law is for us to obey it, which is a simple answer. But what I was trying to get at, it was what Romans chapter three tells us, that the law is given that every mouth may be stopped.

The law is given that you may be silent before God. You have no plea before God, right? And so starting at that point, because everything for them is centered around the law, starting at the purpose of the law and in Galatians chapter three, telling us the law is a schoolmaster, right?

To bring us on to Christ. That's kind of where I geared that conversation and then tried to work through that with him to show him that.

No, no, that's good though. And then that's the thing too, is that, so in other words, it would just be, when you talk about their identity, they base their identity in the law, knowing that they are one of the, and we talk and elaborate on this too, just so people understand is that when they look at the law and, and with it being their identity is that they would believe they are part of the one of the 12, the one of the 12 tribes of Israel, but it, but categorically it's based off of your skin ethnicity as well too, correct?

Right. It would be, they would say they have a whole chart that defines this. And they would say, based on you being from this land or this land, or this land, this is the tribe that, that you will be identified with.

Right. Now there are, there are, they wouldn't say like, like if there's a guy that's really light skin, but it's, but his great granddad was a black guy. They would still say, Oh, he's an Israelite. You understand what I'm saying?

Yeah.

It would be about who your father is or your father is generations ago. Now it's only so far you can follow that. And the Bible tells us that, you know what I mean? It tells us that, you know, the, the vanity of searching after genealogy, you could never know those things.

Right. You go back far enough. You wouldn't know, but for them, who your father is, that tells you who you are. And that's how they identify with tribe you're part of.

So, and again, just to mention too, when it talks about, you mentioned like who your father is. So a big part of it too, just, just knowing the nature of even like what's happened, like in the African American community, like the last 30 to 40 years in regards to like the father not being in the home.

Um, and just really, I think just being made the image of God, regardless of your skin ethnicity, you have, we have this innate father hunger. And I think we have a basis as a Christian to make sense of it.

I mean, you think about Ephesians where it talks about, you know, the father and whichever family under heaven is named. So there is, I think a level of like this innate father hunger that's indicative that just has them there.

Like I could just sense when I was there with you, uh, just when we were trying to get some sort of conversation going, but you just tell that there's this, it's not just a religious gathering. They're not just here to hear some truth.

They're, they're looking almost to be fathered and, but they're doing it by way of just adhering to this new identity. Would that be a correct assessment?

Yeah. Yeah. You see the same thing in like a, in gang culture, right? Typically it's fatherlessness that leads to a certain type of bond that young men are looking for. They're looking from camaraderie, they're looking for purpose, they're looking for identity.

And so when you have these households that are devoid of a father, you see all these guys gathered together to find that identity together. And typically is a bunch of young guys who don't know, you know, how don't know how to lead themselves, trying to lead one another.

Right. So you see that in gang culture. And I think fatherlessness can be directly or indirectly related to so much that's wrong, you know, with our society. Either it's fathers that aren't actually there or fathers who are present, but also absent at the same time.

Right. Sins of commission and omission. It's a big, it's a big, it's a big thing. What would you say to, just kind of jumping to when we talk about how you're saved and how you made right with God and this correlates to, cause you mentioned there the father hunger, how do they, how do they view God?

I mean, I know they're referred to as the most high. They do make a case. In fact, we'll play a clip. I know they believe that, you know, Jesus was, was black. There's that, but how do they like, what is their view of God and how does they, how do they relate Jesus to that?

Is Jesus just a messenger of God or he, is he just a literal son of God or like explain their theology? How does it all just fit together? Theologically speaking.

Right. They would define, obviously, like you said, they their typical name of God is, is the most high. Some the group I was a part of, they would, they would refer to Exodus three and 14 and the way that they were pronounced it as a higher, all the other, all the other groups, they would say you how or, or Yahweh.

And, and, and I would guess, I guess the way that they would define it, they don't believe in a Trinity, right? They believe Trinity is heresy. They would define it though, as I would say a family, right?

Like, like as the Godhead is a family, as you have the father God and the group I was a part of, they would say the Holy spirit is like a feminine spirit, like a motherly spirit. And then Christ is the son.

That's how they would understand it, right? Christ is not God in the flesh. Christ is not deity, any of any, in and of himself. And if they said that he was, they didn't mean it in the way that God is.

There is a clear separation between God, the father and Christ.

Would he be like a lesser deity then?

He would be a lesser deity. Exactly. Okay. It would, like I said, it would be henotheistic. It's, it's God at the top, the Holy spirit and, and you know, Christ.

Now regards, so in regards like to worship, some different cults will have, you know, they'll do something with the Godhead. Maybe they'll separate them into three different camps or three different gods.

But then they say, well, you can only worship. We only give worship to the father, which is never received worship. They will never, they will not worship Christ.

No, if you, if you actually remember that conversation that, uh, pastor James had with recall, he said it was wicked to worship Christ. So then pastor James referenced, uh, revelation chapter chapter five when all created order is worshiping Christ.

And, and, you know, he kinda, he kinda scurried away from that because you can't make sense of that. Otherwise, right. All, all praise and all glory and all worship is given to the son and to the lamb.

I mean to the father and to the lamb. Right. Um, but he would call that wicked. He would say that it's idolatry to worship Christ, you know? So, yeah.

The Purpose of the Law and the Curse of Works

Um, so what would be, what would be some aspects to in regards to jumping back to like how, like how are you saved when you talk about them, them using the law? Um, what would be, can you give me some examples to just like some questions that you've asked, like, like in the midst of it of like, just like a rock you put in their shoe.

Cause the one thing that came to mind, we'll play a clip here in a second is, you know, they're talking about the, I think there was, I was trying to find the exact video, but it was saying how they have the law, like the law is for them, right.

But not for anyone who's a non Hebrew is white. Specifically when they're talking about that, they're talking in terms of that person's ethnicity. Right. Um, like how,.

How would you respond to something like that? Right. I would say, well, and one thing that we mentioned a little bit beforehand, I think, uh, one thing that's lacking from their perspective is that, um, the law or the works of the law is written on all of our hearts and therefore we're all accountable when we break the law.

Right. But they would say that the law was given to them as a possession. And therefore for that purpose, they're the only ones that can properly interpret or understand it. And, and also that's the means by which they're in the situation that they're in, right.

Uh, black people as a whole, we're in the situation that we're in because we've broken the law. Right. Um, what I would be trying to get them away from and get them to is, uh, not the ethnocentric, um, understanding of your current position because, uh, you've broken the law and this is where you are now, but trying to get them to understand that there is nobody ever who could possibly keep the law.

They don't think that. Right. I think that it was possible for them to keep the law. Right. So when they point to Deuteronomy 28 and he says, look, these are the curses and you heard him say in the video we played, um, this is how you identify how they identify who the Israelites are is looking at Deuteronomy 28 and say, who do these curses apply to?

Right. Right. And then they go throughout the world and say, Oh, these people are disenfranchised. These people are oppressed. So on and so forth. Right. Um, I will be trying to get them to understand that the law, first of all, the, the, the, the, the theocracy that we see of Israel was temporary to begin with.

Everything was already tipped, uh, typologically pointing to Christ. The whole purpose was to get to Christ. Right. But to them, it would seem as if not even seem as if Christ essentially is plan B. Right.

Because if Israel kept the law, then there would be no need of Christ. Right. Right. They don't, they don't really see a sinful nature. Um, that's, that's deep seated and deep rooted in man from the time of Adam.

Right. If they would have kept the law, that was supposed to be the nation and they were supposed to rule and reign over the earth. That that's their view of it. Right. Christ is secondary. You know what I'm saying?

So when I'm trying to talk to him, I'm trying to get them to understand. The law is given that every mouth may be stopped, that all may be gathered under sin so that salvation can only be through Christ.

He's the only hope. Right. And they obviously fail to see that. Yeah.

And so when I would be just curious too, um, cause I have, again, I was just watching there in observance, but them viewing the law specifically in relation to their identity. Um, like if I was to do an icebreaker, maybe kind of just sort of using their vernacular and not that I'm giving credence to their God, but I would say like, do you have, even though this is your identity right now, do you, do you have peace with the most high like right now, or is that contingent upon doing that?

That's contingent upon your obedience. So it's a here, but not yet. Yeah. So like I'm, I have the law and this is my identity, but I have to continue to do this thing, which they know that they can't do.

So that's like, what are they, so what would be thing, what would be the things that they believe they have to continue to do in order to, in order to maintain their identity?

The whole of the law, essentially. Um, obviously there's some things that they would say, we're not in our own land in order to uphold these things as far as not sacrifice. They would say Christ is the sacrifice, but, um, even the, even the Holy code, the clean and unclean, they would try to hold to that.

You know, we're in certain kinds of, um, um, fabrics and not mixing fabrics, um, eating certain kinds of meat, you know, all of that they would hold to. But essentially what you're saying is, do they have peace with God and your peace is contingent upon your obedience to the law.

Right. But they would say, wherever we fall short, that's when Christ comes in. Right. But each and every day you're falling in and out of God's grace. Right. You say today I had a good day. And I remember days like this.

I remember thinking like, yeah, I had a pretty good day. Right. Which is like, what do you mean? Like, do you think you didn't send today? Well, I've had some guys tell me point, like straight face that they didn't send in a one guy.

What'd he tell me? He didn't send in three months or something like that. He hadn't sent in a while three. He might, I don't know what the number he gave me. I said, you have not send at all and this amount of time and any, any holy believe that.

And in order for you to believe that you have to bring down, you have to bring down the righteousness of God in order to feel like you really satisfied the righteous requirement of the law. You did that yourself and you've satisfied God for the last three months.

It's absurd. It's absurd that it's a lack of understanding of the holiness of.

God. Yeah. And I think one of the advantages too, because while, you know, we are, we are kind of specifically talking about, you know, Hebrew Israelite theology and how to respond to it. You know, I think what I'm starting to see here, just from hearing you given, given,.

You know,.

Your whole history and the fact that you've even engaged with them on multiple occasions on the streets is that, you know, the answers that you're getting is almost similar to what I would tell the Mormon, which really, you know, sometimes people think that will for me to talk to a cultist, I have to go re, I would have to go listen to 15 sermons by recall, you know, or I'll recall, or just, or we'll try and read up on, you know, five or six different versions of the Hebrew Israelites.

So I can really understand their theology. Well, no, I mean, on some level, I guess that could help if you, if you have the time, but it would be more, no, you need to become familiar on, on who Jesus Christ is, what the gospel is, how does that relate to the law?

And, and then, you know, figure that out. And by that, and that way you'll be able to have this point of reference. So when you went all of a sudden, you know, if you go I'm so familiar with Walter Martin would give us his illustration about the counterfeit dollar bill, where he was talking to people who worked at a bank and they would say, well, how do you, how do you know, like, how do you figure out counterfeit money?

He goes, well, we were trained all we would do for three weeks. We'd have, we would handle the original. Yeah. So the moment a counterfeit bill slips through our hands, you know, like you just feel, you just know it.

Right. So even like with some of the things, just hearing some of the things that they talk about, you can become very much aware of that. And I think a great scripture, you can give me your thoughts on this too, excuse me, is in Galatians three.

Absolutely. And it talks about this and he says, and it's, I believe this is a verse 10 or verse 10, or it says, all who rely on observing the law are under a curse at as, as it is written, cursed. It is everyone who does not continue to do everything in the book of the law.

Clearly no one is justified before God, before God by the law because the righteous will live by faith, quoting Habakkuk two 14, but the law is not based on faith. On the contrary, those who live, those who do these things will live by them.

But Christ came and redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us at as, as it is written, cursed it is everyone who's hung on a tree. So I would also say too I see the wheels in your head, man.

Is that, you know, just presuppositionally we're not coming to a point of neutrality when we're talking to these men who as passionate as they are, we know what God already says about them. They know the triune God of the Bible.

They're without excuse. They're suppressing the truth and unrighteousness, not just that, but they have God's law written on their hearts. And as much as self, as much as they try and I would say articulate a motive, an identity of self-righteousness, they know inherently and unequivocally that they are under a curse and they're trying to justify, I would say they're trying to really articulate their self-righteousness.

But in fact, they're actually suppressing the truth in unrighteousness by trying to say that they are righteous because deep down inside scripture already gives us an advantage point. We know, we know that they know that they're under a curse.

For sure. For sure. And I think what you see is when, when the law is the means by which a person believes that they're justified before God, you either get two responses. You get absolute despair, right?

And falling away from that, you get despair and a person falls away because they don't think they can do anything about it. Or you get legalism, right? And that legalism is brought about by a lack of understanding of the law.

Because if you really understood the law, you would understand that there's no way you could be justified by it. And the scripture tells us this all throughout, right? Even what you just referenced, James chapter two does the same thing.

You want to keep the law to keep the whole of it, right? For if you broke it in one point, you've broken the entire thing. It's a whole unit. You broke one point, you broke it all. Right. And they're not grasping that there's a disconnect there.

Right. And that's what I'm trying to highlight for them. I'm trying to show them if you rely on the law at all, it's like, it's like what Paul was saying in Galatians, right? You just want to add circumcision where you've fallen from grace.