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

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Cultish: Gwen Shamblin & The Remnant Fellowship, Pt. 2

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The Bible. Is it hard to understand?

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When it comes to reading the Bible, the first thing that comes to mind is the fact that this is the

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Word of God. The seals have been broken and the truth is here.

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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

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Hebrew language. Christ said, I came for the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

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But yet no one, no religious leader, no religious church out there anywhere can now identify the twelve tribes of Israel.

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Can we? God is quite simple, but it seems as if man makes understanding

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Him hard. What are those mysteries? The truth of your book and the truth will make you free.

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The Hebrew and Bible Academy, you're invited. Alright, welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to Cultish, entering the kingdom of the cults.

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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.

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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.

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So, I am, though, super excited because I'll be kind of running the ship today, but I am here back with Oscar Dunlap.

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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.

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So, what we're going to do today is we're going to have just kind of like a primer, and there's time, 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

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Hebrew -Israelites on the street? How do you engage with them? What inspired me to do this episode is that you had done a

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Facebook post. You're part of Apology at Church, and you typically go out on Friday and Saturday night.

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You are now doing passionately what you once did as a Hebrew -Israelite, but now with a true gospel of Jesus Christ.

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And you are out there usually on doing some sort of open -air preaching, and I saw you done a picture on your

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Facebook, and we'll post it too on our social media. We post on our social media where you're engaging with someone.

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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,

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God bless him, you can 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 was in that conversation was he sort of taken back by how well you knew his theology?

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I mean, I'm trying to, this picture is worth a thousand words. Right, right, right. Like, bring me into that conversation. How did the conversation take place?

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Yeah, so he had stopped earlier, like further up the street, and he was talking to a couple of the guys down there.

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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.

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I was witnessing to him when this started. So he starts walking up, and he just stands there.

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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, he just stands next to me.

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And so after I'm talking for a while, I just turn, and I say, you know, what do you think about what I'm saying? And he starts talking a little bit, and I was like, are you a

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Hebrew Israelite? Just based off his answer, I just, I could hear it. He's like, yeah, yeah,

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I'm a Hebrew Israelite. And so that's how the conversation starts. They tell him I was a former Hebrew Israelite.

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He comes down to hear what I'm saying, hear what I'm preaching. And he's, so immediately he's like, oh yeah,

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

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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?

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And so we start going to Ephesians chapter 2. We start going to a couple different places in Scripture, but what

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I was trying to explain to him is like, I know your doctrines better than you do. I know them better than you do.

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I can show in the Scriptures why you believe what you believe by false interpretation.

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But he didn't, 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.

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He couldn't handle it. Yeah. That is the case sometimes across the board.

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Sometimes where all you can really do, and Walter Martin talked about this, is you sort of plant seeds of doubt and allow the

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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 another cult, he went to a cult headquarters, the

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Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, and he had a conversation with someone who, it 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.

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

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And eventually it came to the point where he really, he couldn't get away from it.

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Eventually God used that to save him and he became born again. Which was, you know, that case. But even,

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I think it's 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 or like, ha ha,

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I'm going to take my sword and slash you to ribbons. Like, I want to be able to put a rock strategically placed, a little pebble in their shoe and eventually it's like, ooh, what is that?

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And eventually and have them to really ask questions. 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 or 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.

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So I kind of have this sort of linguistic Aikido, right? Immediately someone throws something outside of the essentials,

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I try and grab it, spin it around to like, who is God? Who is the gospel? How are you saved?

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And you talked about that too. So yeah, 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?

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And then what are, let's get into some of the essentials about what do they believe about the gospel? And then how do we understand their language barrier?

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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

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Bible for the authority and understanding, you're going to deal with that situation of having that language barrier, right?

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They're going to use some of the same terminology as a Christian, and now you have to start redefining. So one thing

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I'll tell you really quick, one story is, I was out there with a brother and we were handing out tracts, you know, we're witnessing the people, and some people as you walk by, it's very quick conversations and you're trying to get to the point really, really quickly, right?

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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.

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So he was a Mexican guy, so they were okay with him as far as they believe he's a

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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's like, yeah, seems like some solid

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Christians. And I was like, no, those are Hebrews. But because he didn't define terms, right, they were in agreement with him, right?

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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.

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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

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Son of God but it would be more of a theistic approach where God is the Father God and Christ and the

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Holy Spirit are under him, right? Who is Christ? What is the gospel?

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We're saved by grace and through faith, right? Apart from works. And then identity in Christ, right?

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Because so much of this 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 Hebrews or Israelites.

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So much of it is, right? That's their I would say that's the ultimate presupposition by which they interpret scripture.

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Right. We are Hebrew -Israelites and everything else kind of revolves around that. Yeah, so even what you're talking about in relation to identity, you know, we just with a couple of videos we have up, we're going to play a clip of one of them in just a moment.

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You've got some folks some Hebrew -Israelite folks who are doing some passionate doing some passionate preaching but they're wearing outfits with the emphasis on the color purple.

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There's an aspect of that. Then you have some people in some black Hebrew -Israelites in Times Square.

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They're talking but they're all wearing red and of course they're also used as a colorful language that does include the words please and thank you.

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So, 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.

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So we played a clip earlier kind of like from a person who was your previous teacher or mentor

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I guess you would say, Elder Rakah, and he's 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

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Hebrew language, how to interpret the Bible my specific way. So that correlates too with their identity.

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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

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Catholic Church and the infallibility of the Pope, you see they believe they have a monopoly on the interpretation of Scripture.

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That they alone can properly interpret the Scripture. Now the Mormons they have a way in which they understand and it's

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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.

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But the Hebrew Israelites, it's more like the Mormons where they say, well we were lost, right, and now

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God is waking his people up. Now he is restoring his people and only his people can properly interpret

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Scripture. So when he's speaking here all that he's saying is about your identity and you having the means to understand the

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Scripture because it's written about you. They would say we are the main characters of the Bible. It's all about us.

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And from there, everyone else that wants to know the Bible needs to come learn it from us. Very much so.

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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

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Hebrew they're typically with a group they're all in a group and they kind of have a way in which they talk.

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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

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Bible and he'll refer to this person and they'll usually yell out a certain verse or two and they'll gather a crowd.

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In fact, we were together not too long ago kind of observing that. They wouldn't talk to you and especially me.

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I wonder why. But yeah, so when we get into talking about the

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Gospel and also specifically with a conversation you had with a guy on Mill Avenue. When you talk about how are you saved?

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And again, you got to realize that they are viewing it through their own, their unique identity. It's really about identity.

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Yes, ethnocentric. Yeah, how do you break, ice break that conversation in a language that they can really understand that's palatable for them?

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Right, so when it comes to worldviews that rely upon Scripture as an authority that's our reference point now.

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So like 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

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Christian worldview. But we're showing them that they have a lack of a grounding for these things around us, right?

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But with worldviews that deal with Scripture and they rely upon Scripture, we go to Scripture to refute their position.

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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.

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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?

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We see it in Romans 5, we see it in Ephesians 2, we see it even in the Old Testament, right? All of our righteousness are filthy rags.

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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.

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So the first thing that I took him to was Romans chapter 3 and I said, okay, you as a Hebrew Israelite who employ the law as a means of salvation because he was telling me, yeah,

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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?

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Exactly what Mormon doctrine is, right? Up until you can do no more, right? And then Christ kicks in and gives you the little nudge that you need.

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So with this guy I'm like, okay, what's the purpose of the law? Right? And he's like, well, the purpose of the law is for us to obey it, which is a simple answer.

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But what I was trying to get at was what Romans chapter 3 tells us that the law is given that every mouth may be stopped.

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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 3 telling us the law is a schoolmaster, right?

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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.

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No, that's good though. And 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 with it being their identity, is that they would believe they are part of the one of the twelve tribes of Israel, but categorically it's based off of your skin ethnicity as well too, correct?

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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 you will be identified with, right?

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Now, there are they wouldn't say like if there's a guy that's really light skinned but his great granddad was a black guy, they would still say oh, he's an

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Israelite. You understand what I'm saying? It would be about who your father is, who your father is generations ago.

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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 vanity of searching after genealogy, you could never know those things, right?

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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 what tribe you're part of.

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And again, just to mention too, when it talks about you mentioned who your father is, a big part of it too, just knowing the nature of even what's happened in the

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African American community the last 30 to 40 years in regards to the father not being in the home.

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And just really, I think just being made in 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

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Christian to make sense of that. I mean, you think about Ephesians where it talks about the father in whichever family under heaven is named.

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So there is, I think, a level of like this innate father hunger that's indicative that just has them there.

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Like I could just sense when I was there with you, 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.

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They're not just here to hear some truth. They're looking almost to be fathered. But they're doing it by a way of just adhering to this new identity.

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Would that be a correct assessment? Yeah, yeah. You see the same thing in gang culture. Typically it's fatherlessness that leads to a certain type of bond that young men are looking for.

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They're looking for 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 gather together to find that identity together.

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Typically it's a bunch of young guys who don't know how to lead themselves, trying to lead one another.

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So you see that in gang culture. And I think fatherlessness can be directly or indirectly related to so much that's wrong with our society.

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Either it's fathers that aren't actually there or fathers who are present but also absent at the same time.

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Right. Sends a commission, an omission. Exactly. 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're made right with God, and this correlates to, because you mentioned the father hunger, how do they view

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God? I mean, I know they refer to Him as the Most High. They do make a case, in fact we'll play a clip.

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I know they believe that Jesus was black. There's that. But how do they like, what is their view of God?

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And how do they relate Jesus to that? Is Jesus just a messenger of God or is

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He just a literal son of God? Or like, explain their theology. How does it all just fit together theologically speaking?

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Right. They would define, obviously, like you said, their typical name of God is the

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Most High. Some, the group I was a part of, they would refer to Exodus 3 and 14 in the way that they would pronounce it as Ahiah.

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All the other groups, they would say Yahawa or Yahweh. And I would guess,

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I guess the way that they would define it, they don't believe in a trinity, right? They believe trinity is heresy.

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They would define it though as, I would say, a family, right? Like as the

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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.

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And then Christ is the Son. That's how they would understand it, right? Christ is not

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God in the flesh. Christ is not deity in and of Himself. And if they said that He was, they didn't mean it in the way that God is.

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There is a clear separation between God the Father and Christ. Would He be a lesser deity then?

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He would be a lesser deity, exactly. Like I said, it would be he -notheistic. It's God at the top, the

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Holy Spirit and Christ. Now, in regards to worship, some different cults will have, you know, they'll do something with the

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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

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Father. Oh yeah, they will not worship Christ. They will not worship Christ. No, if you actually remember that conversation that Pastor James had with Raqqa, he said it was wicked to worship

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Christ. So then Pastor James referenced Revelation chapter 5 when all created order is worshiping

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Christ. And you know, he kind of scurried away from that because you can't make sense of that otherwise, right?

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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?

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But he would call that wicked. He would say it's idolatry to worship Christ. You know, so. Yeah.

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So what would be some aspects in regards to, jumping back to how are you saved when you talk about them using the law?

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What would be, can you give me some examples too, just like some questions that you've asked, like in the midst of it of just like a rock you put in their shoe?

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Because the one thing that came to mind, we'll play a clip here in a second, is you know, they're talking about the,

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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, but not for anyone who's a non -Hebrew or is white.

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Specifically, when they're talking about that, they're talking in terms of that person's ethnicity. Right. Like how would you respond to something like that?

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Right. I would say, and one thing that we mentioned a little bit beforehand, I think one thing that's lacking from their perspective is that 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?

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

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Black people as a whole, we're in the situation that we're in because we've broken the law. What I would be trying to get them away from and get them to is not the ethnocentric understanding of your current position because 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.

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They don't think that. Right. They think that it was possible for them to keep the law, right? So when they point to Deuteronomy 28 and they say, look, these are the curses.

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You heard them say in the video we played, this is how you identify. How they identify who the

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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.

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Right. I would be trying to get them to understand that the law, first of all, the theocracy that we see of Israel was temporary to begin with.

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Everything was already typologically pointing to Christ. The whole purpose was to get to Christ. Right.

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But to them it would seem as if, not even seem as if, Christ essentially is plan B. Right.

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

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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.

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That's their view of it. Right. Christ is secondary. You know what I'm saying? So when

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I'm trying to talk to them, 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.

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He's the only hope. Right. They obviously fail to see that. Yeah. And so, I would be just curious too, because I have, again,

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I was just watching there in observance, but them viewing the law specifically in relation to their identity.

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Like, if I was to do an icebreaker, maybe kind of just sort of using their vernacular, not that I'm giving credence to their

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God, but I would say, even though this is your identity right now, do you have peace with the

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Most High, like right now? Or is that contingent upon doing that? That's contingent upon your obedience to the law.

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So it's a here, but not yet. 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.

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

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The whole of the law, essentially. Obviously, there's some things that they would say, we're not on our own land in order to uphold these things as far as, not sacrifice, they would say

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Christ is the sacrifice, but even the holy code, the clean and unclean, they would try to hold to that, wearing certain kinds of fabrics and not mixing fabrics, eating certain kinds of meat, all of that they would hold to.

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But essentially, what you're saying is, do they have peace with God? And your peace is contingent upon your obedience to the law.

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But they would say, wherever we fall short, that's when Christ comes in. But each and every day, you're falling in and out of God's grace.

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You say, today I had a good day. And I remember days like this. I remember thinking, I had a pretty good day. Which is like, what do you mean?

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Do you think you didn't sin today? I've had some guys tell me straight face that they didn't sin.

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One guy, what did he tell me? He didn't sin in three months or something like that? He hadn't sinned in a while? I don't know what the number he gave me.

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I said, you have not sinned at all in this amount of time. And he wholly believed that.

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And in order for you to believe that, you have to bring down the righteousness of God in order to feel like you really satisfied the righteous requirement of the law.

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You did that yourself, and you've satisfied God for the last three months. It's absurd. It's absurd. It's a lack of understanding of the holiness of God.

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And I think one of the advantages, too, because while we are specifically talking about Hebrew -Israelite theology and how to respond to it,

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I think what I'm starting to see here, just from hearing you, given your whole history and the fact that you've even engaged with them on multiple occasions on the streets, is that the answers that you're getting is almost similar to what

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I would tell the Mormon, which really, sometimes people think that, well, for me to talk to a cultist,

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I have to go read, I would have to go listen to 15 sermons by Raqal, or El Raqal, or try and read up on five or six different versions of the

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Hebrew -Israelite so I can really understand their theology. Well, no. I mean, on some level,

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I guess that could help if you have the time. Right, for sure. But it would be more, no, you need to become familiar on who

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Jesus Christ is, what the gospel is, how does that relate to the law, and then figure that out.

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And by that way, you'll be able to have this point of reference, so when you, all of a sudden, if you become so familiar,

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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 know, how do you figure out counterfeit money?

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He goes, well, we were trained, all we would do for three weeks, we would handle the original, so the moment a counterfeit bill slips through our hands, you know, you just feel it, you just know it.

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So even with some of the things, just hearing some of the things that they talk about, you can become very much aware of that.

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And I think a great scripture, you can give me your thoughts on this too, is in Galatians 3, and it talks about this, and he says, and I believe this is verse 10, where it says, all who rely on observing the law are under a curse, as it is written, cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything in the book of the law.

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Clearly, no one is justified before God by the law, because the righteous will live by faith, quoting

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Habakkuk 2 .14. But the law is not based on faith, on the contrary, those who live, those who do these things will live by them.

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But Christ came and redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, as it is written, cursed is everyone who's hung on a tree.

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So, I'd 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

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God already says about them. They know the triune God of the Bible, they're without excuse, they're suppressing the truth of unrighteousness.

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Not just that, but they have God's law written on their hearts, and as much as they try and,

28:27

I would say, articulate an identity of self -righteousness, they know inherently and unequivocally that they are under a curse, and they're trying to justify,

28:39

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 unrighteous, because deep down inside Scripture already gives us an advantage point.

28:53

We know that they know that they're under a curse. For sure. What you see is when the law is the means by which a person believes that they're justified before God, you either get two responses.

29:08

You get absolute despair, and falling away from that, you get despair and the person falls away because they don't think they can do anything about it, or you get legalism.

29:19

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.

29:28

The Scripture tells us this all throughout. Even what you just referenced, James chapter 2 does the same thing.

29:33

You want to keep the law to keep the whole of it. If you broke it in one point, you've broken the entire thing. It's a whole unit.

29:39

You broke one point, you broke it all. They're not grasping that. There's a disconnect there. That's what

29:45

I'm trying to highlight for them. I'm trying to show them, if you rely on the law at all, it's like what

29:50

Paul was saying in Galatians. You just want to add circumcision. Well, you've fallen from grace. The moment any works becomes the means by which you're saved, you're falling from grace now.

30:00

It cannot be purchased. That's the part that it's really hard. I even had a conversation with the guys that were there when they didn't talk to us then.

30:10

Those guys, I had a conversation with the leader of that organization here in Phoenix. Even then, every point

30:17

I could get some point of agreeance on, except that, except salvation. Even the

30:24

Trinity, I explained it to him in a way that he was like, I've never heard that before. That makes much more sense than any other Christian I've ever heard explain it because most

30:30

Christians don't know how to explain it either. He said, when it came to salvation though, he wouldn't budge on that.

30:38

He couldn't see it. That's because that's the natural way of man. We think everything we get, we must earn ourselves.

30:44

By men, we're wired to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, to be pioneers.

30:49

We want to go through and do our own thing. Well, if I can do that in business, if I can be a self -made person in business, or I can be a self -made person in regards to,

30:59

I don't know, whatever it is, whether it's in fitness, getting yourself to the point where you can bench 400 or do deadlifts, whatever the things, all the things men like to do.

31:09

Sure. Why cannot that be the same with my spirituality?

31:15

Absolutely. I think there's almost a unique, maybe a similarity and contrast. I think sometimes, even with Mormonism, contrasting that with the

31:25

Hebrew Israelites, there's a reason why I think sometimes it's almost that it's almost like the definitive

31:30

American religion in the sense that a big part of the identity is like, hey, I have the family and I'm a family man and I get the house.

31:36

Almost like that Stepford Wives. I can just do all those sort of things and I can just pull myself up with my bootstraps.

31:45

It's probably the same there too. Absolutely. One thing that really was highlighted to me as I was thinking about this and kind of comparing it with Mormon apologetics is they have made

32:00

Mormons have made God a man because it's much easier to satisfy a man.

32:06

So when you say we're saved after all that we can do, that makes sense if your God is a man.

32:12

He would accept the work of a man. The Hebrews won't call God a man, but you see oftentimes when they're referring to him, they refer to him like a man.

32:21

Even if you heard the guy said, he says, what does God look like? He said that to the lady in the video we watched. What does God look like?

32:27

We're going to play that video in a second. I have a question though. Do they have a view of God that first and foremost, do they believe that God is the most high separate from the sun?

32:39

Do they believe that the most high is eternal, never had a beginning? They do. In other words, they would believe then that the revelation of the

32:48

Old Testament, the revelation of the law is eternal and it can't change. For sure. Because usually in contrast to Mormonism, usually when people look at revelation, what makes the

32:59

Christian message so unique is the fact that we're looking at as revelation from a

33:04

God who is eternal and does not change versus if you have a deity that is changing, progressing and evolving, what's to say that person can't change their mind and evolve and become woke or come to a deeper understanding.

33:21

Right. They missed the point on Christ. That's where they missed the point because all that we get in the law, we get

33:26

God, his expression of his righteousness and his perfection in the law, right? And then we get Christ come and embody that.

33:33

So all that we see written in the law, we see Christ come and live that out perfectly. Well, that's the part that they're missing.

33:38

In the last episode when we talked, I talked about Christ saying there's none good but God and him showing in his life that he's good and that's the means by which we're saved because he's good.

33:47

He's a blank slate. Therefore, our sin can be put on him, right? The one that had no sin became sin on our behalf. Well, that's the disconnect.

33:54

They're not understanding that in order for him to be a savior, he needed to be God first, right? And there's just a disconnect there.

34:00

But one other thing I wanted to say, when it comes to them, a lack of understanding of the holiness of God, I think it comes

34:08

Yeah, because you mentioned that in your post. Yeah, yeah. A scripture that comes to mind is

34:13

Psalm chapter 50. Psalm chapter 50, I believe it's verse 12 where he says, you thought that I was altogether like you.

34:20

You thought that I was like you. See, when we think that God is like us, our works seem like they'll do the job.

34:26

It seems like, well, why wouldn't he accept my word? Because we're looking at him like he's like us. When we know the true

34:32

Christian knows God is holy, he's altogether different than we are. And therefore, we know our works could do nothing but try to bribe them.

34:40

So would they believe that he's a man? Like an exalted man? Or is he immaterial?

34:47

Or what would be their theology of how they view God? Because it seems like they're trying to be like him. Yeah. He's much more of a man than a true

34:55

Christian would understand him to be. They wouldn't necessarily say, they wouldn't go as far as Mormonism goes. Not like a body of flesh and bones.

35:02

When they describe him, and sometimes when they describe him, they don't look at it as metaphorical. So when you look at the

35:07

Ancient of Days in Daniel chapter 7, they say that's what God looks like. God has gray hair.

35:13

Right? When it says his hair is white like wool and Christ looks like God. So they wouldn't clearly say that God has a body, but they would refer to the you know, when scripture is anthropomorphizing

35:24

God, they would refer to that as that's God. They wouldn't see it as a metaphor or anything like that.

35:31

They would say that's really him. If you see what he said, he said created, this is the language that he used. Like when God created, he was speaking an audible voice.

35:39

The hands of God. Exactly. So what would they do? Because I remember, like Walter Moore talked about and I brought it up once or twice, the

35:48

LDS that I interact with haven't brought it up as much as of recent, but you know, when they try and talk about the hands of God or the face of God, well, what about in Hebrews where all of a sudden it says our

35:58

God is a consuming fire? Right. Like is he a blasphemer? I'll trust in the cover of your wings. Is he a cosmic chicken?

36:04

Right. Does he have, I remember Pastor Jeff mentioned that in one of the debates, does God have, does he have wings?

36:10

Yeah. Does he have feathers, right? Because it said, yeah. It's very inconsistent, right? So some of it they would point to and say, that's poetic, that's metaphoric and other ones they would point to and say, look, that's what

36:19

God looks like. He has gray hair. Would it be just more, when you talk about, because I mean there's one of the arguments that they'll make and I've seen in videos that they'll talk about who,

36:31

I mean it seems depending on the cult, they try and list a countless number of denominations, whether it's 500 ,000, you know, 50 ,000.

36:39

There's always a number in mind. Right. That they always have. Yeah. I don't know the number, but a lot of times they would group up all the

36:49

Christianity and they would think of it all as heretical, along with the Roman Catholic Church. They would group all that up and they say, this is all heretical.

36:56

There's all these different denominations. None of them can understand the Bible and it's because they haven't learned it from us, essentially.

37:03

They would bring all of that authority back to themselves and say, unless they come and learn from us, they won't be able to properly interpret

37:09

Scripture. Yeah, so almost just jumping back for a second, when you talk about how they view

37:15

God and being really rooted in identity, would they kind of really view

37:21

God as almost a mere image of their ideal self? That's what it sounds like, man.

37:28

Yeah, it does. And that's why I said the comparisons between Mormon, as I was thinking about it,

37:33

I was like, wow, those are some stark similarities because they won't just come out and say he's a man, but when they describe him in the way that the thought is, it's very much like a man.

37:45

Very much like a man. Yeah, very similar. Oh yeah, so in one of the videos that we were just playing a second ago was both of the two different groups of Hebrews that had different colors of their group that is a deep part of their identity like the fabric, and I'm assuming they'd be two different groups more than likely.

38:10

Where are the variations? Are some of them have to do with the tribe that they identify with? Or is it really just they believe that their interpretation means

38:20

Elder Rakah has his way that he sees things, but for every Elder Rakah there's probably a dime a dozen other who are going to see things.

38:29

It's going to be their special insight, but it's going to be radically different from Elder Rakah. Absolutely. What are some of the dividing lines just within the camp of the

38:36

Hebrew Israelites? One major one would be the name. Like I said, some would say

38:41

Ahiah, some would say Yehawah or Yahweh. Another major dividing point would be who else can be saved outside of Israel.

38:54

Gathering of Christ Church would say all people can be saved, but there is a hierarchy in salvation. The children of Israel would be up here, they would be ruling, and then the other people would be servants.

39:02

Other groups would say something similar, but they would say the servitude will be harsh.

39:11

The GOCC would say the servitude won't be harsh. Other groups would say you're going to be my slave. They'll say it just like that.

39:17

You're going to be my slave in the New Kingdom. Some groups believe in annihilationism, think that some people are just going to be annihilated.

39:24

Other groups believe in reincarnation. One guy, they told me that you continue to be reincarnated in your lineage.

39:32

So you're Edomite, you're going to be Edomite forever. You're just going to continue to be reincarnated as an

39:38

Edomite. It gets really wild. When you have no authority when it comes to interpreting

39:46

Scripture, when you have no reference point, obviously we know Scripture interprets Scripture and Scripture is sufficient, we believe in total

39:53

Scripture, but when you don't have a reference point as far as doctrines and creeds to reference when it comes to what the

40:00

Christian Church has historically believed, we can reference those things. And then when we're wrong about something, when we're referencing all of these different guys throughout church history, we can say, okay,

40:10

I'm probably wrong about this because all these other guys disagree with me. They don't have that. There is no reference point for them.

40:17

Not only are they the ultimate authority on the interpretation of Scripture, but it's an unchecked authority.

40:24

Nothing's there to check them. Because all of the groups are totally distinct from each other. They will never rely on one another.

40:30

They're not friendly with one another most times. So, for example, G .O .C .C., however they interpret

40:36

Scripture, that is the truth. There is no compromise there. That's part of what's so dangerous about it, is the word of the leaders, of the prophets, is law.

40:48

It's almost on the same level of Scripture, what they say. It is essentially.

40:54

Now you're talking about the word of the teacher of their prophet, that would be the current leader. Yeah, so while they would believe in a

41:00

God that is eternal, it's contingent upon the prophet, or even, you can even call it the seer.

41:06

It's not just the Hebrew language, but it's my special insight into the

41:11

Hebrew language that no one else has. But I'll recall, he's just a man. I'm just going to go out, even though I haven't really, aside from the debate that he had with James White, I'm going to assume that he's probably has changed his mind on just a few things.

41:28

For sure. I mean, I've changed my mind on things. I mean, I've, even like with doing cultish, I've looked at certain groups, and my opinion has evolved about this group by gathering more information and intel, but it's probably more challenging for someone who's in a group like El -Rakha because they're looking to him for leadership as one who's going to sort of, almost sort of be their covering in a sense of spiritual authority, and that's rooted into their identity, but he's probably consistently,

42:01

I'm assuming just because he's a man, is changing his mind on a regular basis. I'll give you a great example of this, and they're going to be mad at me about this one, right?

42:08

They're going to be mad at me about this one. No, it's good. No, it's actually good, though, because the more people comment, the more it'll boost the video up.

42:16

So if you are a Hebrew Israelite listening in, first of all, we love you, and we want you to know

42:21

Jesus Christ. Please comment, and please comment away, because it's going to help us get this video more out there.

42:28

Love the algorithm. And all of our outreach, all of our evangelism is born out of a love for our neighbor, right?

42:36

That's why we do this. We're not just being combatants. We're not just trying to destroy anybody's worldview. We're showing the absurdity of a worldview that they may turn to Christ.

42:46

That's the whole point, right? But one big example, from the time that I got into this, which was 2010, to the time that I was out of it, which was just a few years ago, right?

42:57

The big thing that was always looming was fleeing the United States, right?

43:03

Because the United States would be destroyed. So GOCC, they're known as the group that taught the flee doctrine, right?

43:09

Leave the country, because it's going to be destroyed soon. Right? I mean, soon, soon.

43:15

I mean, the group that I was a part of, we were talking like six months, a year, we got to go because it's going to be destroyed. It was like Obama's going to be the last president, that type of stuff.

43:25

That has all but gone. There's no one talking about that anymore. They got like a, they have like a headquarters in Philadelphia.

43:34

They're rebuilding stuff. No one's talking about that. Which is just interesting because with that, having sort of this end times vision like that, but having it directly related to it being salvific, it's almost like salvation is not just you and your identity, but now it's almost geocentric.

43:52

It's contingent upon a particular place. And God forbid something happens, like what if they try to do that today and everyone went into lockdown?

44:01

What do I do now? Shoot. And you know, they got ideas about all this stuff. Lockdowns, it's extremely conspiratorial.

44:08

Everything about it, but everything is directed towards them. Everything that's happening is directed towards them.

44:16

So the way that they take in information, like I said, their major presupposition is that they are the

44:22

Hebrew Israelites and the world is trying to keep it a secret from them. So the way that they take in the whole vaccine and all this stuff,

44:28

I guarantee it is through that lens. In fact, this is an important thing too, just about cults in general, is that they'll always use current events or the current crises of whatever is in the news headlines.

44:43

Everything is in regards to the vaccine and all that and the different mandates and all that.

44:51

Back in 2008, you would have had the real estate crisis, which

44:56

I don't know how much people saw this. It was just a tough financial time. I don't think there's any apocalyptic visions people had.

45:03

But you look at around the year 2000, on the eve of the millennium, from 97, even like the mid -90s, there were a lot of these millennial apocalyptic cults that were arising because they're using this, what's going to happen in the year 2000 is

45:20

Y2K, if some of you are old enough to remember that. They're always using times of crises to try and use that to spin their own narrative, to really articulate their group as in Noah's Ark.

45:32

For sure. This group, the group, so Elder Ricard comes from another group called

45:38

ISUPK. That group was predicting that Christ would come back in 2000. That group that he came from.

45:44

Christ would return to the earth in the year 2000. And when it didn't happen, that's when a lot of the splinters happened.

45:49

That's when a lot of people left and they started branching off. So what the major group that a lot of people come from, they call them

45:56

One West. It's named after a street in New York. They all come from a certain place. We talked about this a little last time.

46:02

But all of these splinter groups come out of that. But a lot of the splinters start with that false prophecy.

46:08

And that's what you see. Like you said, you see cults. They employ prophecy. They employ the curtain crisis. And that's how they lend authority because it's fear tactics.

46:16

You get people afraid of things and I have the answer. Come to me, I can tell you what to do. So that's true.

46:21

And also when you mentioned conspiratorial, we've done episodes too on conspiracy theories and all that. And I think, you know, we have an episode if you want to listen in on conspiracy theories talking about, you know, there's a biblical way to think about them.

46:33

We shouldn't be surprised that people do evil in the world. Or that people might conspire to do something.

46:38

But a lot of times that mindset, typically a lot of people who either are in the, even just in the

46:45

New Age or even like cults like the Hebrew Israelites that are on the fringe, they'll usually will appeal to that.

46:51

The whole world is being run, you know, by the Rockefellers, the elites or the

46:58

Jesuits and the Freemasons and all that. So in other words, they'll use that while there might be elements of truth in what they're saying, what the means to an end by how they're articulating it is that what you think you know, you don't know.

47:11

But we actually have the secret hidden esoteric knowledge and interpretation that no one else has that has been taken to you that was suppressed by you know, up until the

47:24

King James Bible, like you name it. And the way that they can weaponize this is that you have the ability to kind of disavow any true historical source and any real historical, it ignores any aspect of real historical verifiability with how you even look at history and how you view the world.

47:46

And then I can sort of spin my own narrative and my own theology and retell my own version of history as a way to advance my own theology.

47:53

It's so dangerous, man. It's so dangerous. I had dinner with a Mormon guy, maybe like last week and I was talking to him and it was all so familiar to me.

48:04

It was so familiar and I'm like, man, the tactics of the cults don't change. The particulars are different, right?

48:11

But it's the same general perspective. Isn't it funny though, how we're like talking to each other?

48:17

I've talked with tons of Mormons. I grew up in that culture and here you are and it's like you've mostly, you were in the

48:25

Hebrew Religious Science for nearly a decade. You've talked with multiple, tons of them and here we are.

48:32

We're talking to each other like we both, like we're talking to the same people like we're getting to each other. And the reason why I bring that up is just because what we're talking about is just a broad spectrum.

48:41

So if you're listening in, you know, sometimes when you look at a cult and their theology and like making sense of it, again, it can be overwhelming and it can, all of a sudden you think you need to know every little intricacy about this, this, and this when in reality you just need to become familiar with the original, where they go to, what their mindset is, why they're conspiratorial or why they would have sometimes maybe like how would they do with a, how would they use like a dispensational end times vision driven eschatology?

49:14

How would they interpret that? Oh, it's extremely end times driven. It's all, like I said, destruction is coming soon.

49:21

A term that they typically use is that Christ is going to crack the sky and basically he's going to enslave the rest of humanity.

49:29

Like I said, some of them are a little more on the lighter side, like, oh, it'll be a good slavery. Other ones are like, you know, we're going to give you back what you gave us essentially, you know what

49:41

I mean? So not as in like historically Christ is going to return the judged, the living and the dead.

49:46

There's going to be a final judgment, but specifically he is coming back to enslave people, as in like to sort of be his own sort of basically be a colonizer, but just their version of colonization.

50:03

Absolutely. It would be, he's going to come back and there is going to be a final judgment, but they would look at that as a millennial.

50:10

When he first comes back it's going to be that millennial rule, then it'll be the final judgment. But that a millennial rule, the

50:16

Israelites are going to reign with him on the earth before. And some of them, like I said, it varies. Some of them are way out there, but typically that's what it is.

50:25

He's going to come back, millennial rule, and then it'll be a final judgment after that. Yeah. So I think what

50:30

I would think too in regards, maybe we can jump into this as we do in the next episode and just see note too, we are in a process of just some transitions here at Cultish.

50:39

We're in the process of some of the things going on in the studio. So for the time being, temporarily, we are going to be breaking up our episodes again.

50:45

I'm sorry to break your hearts, but you may have to wait an entire week sometimes with some of the episodes we do.

50:53

But what I do want to just say before we kind of wrap things up here and maybe we'll jump into part two, is that because of the fact that so much of what they do and what they say is rooted in their identity, is that I don't think you even need as much to wrap it up.

51:13

If you're a Christian wondering about how to talk to a Hebrew Israelite, don't become so much an expert on how they view their identity.

51:20

Start studying. Start going through the book of Ephesians and find a good study on who you are in Christ.

51:29

What does it mean to be a Christian in Christ? There's actually a really good book.

51:37

I'm actually giving them a plug. Maybe I should reach out to them and say, hey, we're talking about you. There's a book called, I think it's called

51:42

Defined, Who God Says You Are. I've skimmed through it. It's almost like a book slash devotional, but it just goes through all these chapters layer by layer about who you are in Christ.

51:53

I think if you read something like that, and there's a couple of other good books out there, but you would become a lot more familiar with the original about who you truly are in Christ, because deep down inside, they're suppressing the truth of unrighteousness.

52:07

That's what these people who are created for, these guys who are out there shouting what they're shouting and making these claims and dressing their unique garments and doing all of that.

52:16

It's easy sometimes for some people, I think, to make a joke about them and some of all that, but the reality is they're taking it seriously and honestly, they're taking it, if I'm truly honest, probably a lot more serious than even most

52:29

Christians would on a regular basis. I think we need to have compassion for them. And yeah, become familiar with who you are in Christ, and that'll probably give you a good precedent of really how to talk to them.

52:41

Absolutely. And I would say know your Bible, and that'll be the best defense against any other world view.

52:48

We even know this from sports. They say the best defense is a good offense. You know what you believe, and you can refute anything.

52:56

So if we are grounded in Scripture, when what false comes, we'll have the proper defense to give an answer for the hope that lie in us.

53:06

Yeah, and as much, and again, I'm going to play a clip here, and this is not, people have made this into like a ha -gotcha moment, but I think it's good to just kind of show that at the end of the day, when as much as so many of these people, and aside from the grace of God, we would be somewhere, we would go, is that,

53:27

I don't know, how can I really say it, except when Paul does talk about professing to be wise, they became fools, there is a time when you do expose their views, like their world view is coming down.

53:41

It's going to crash. It's going to fall down. What are you going to give them to fall upon? So as you know, this is actually a very famous clip.

53:49

It's to Elder Rakah when he was talking with James White, shout out to James White, and this was a moment just where it really showed you just the house of cards that really is his world view.

54:01

As you said, it's very broad, but not tall. So let's go ahead and play this clip, and we'll wrap up here.

54:08

In Hosea, the second chapter, in the 16th verse, and it shall be at that day, saith the

54:13

Most High, that thou shalt call me Ishi, and shalt call me no more

54:19

Beli. When you look at that word Beli, that derives, in your strong accordance, you can go there from the word

54:27

Jehovah or the Tetragrammaton. So we began to scribe that name in reference back then.

54:35

The Mazarites just continued it. Beli is from Baal, sir.

54:42

That's from Baal. Sir, you think I don't know Beli is from Baal? You just said it was from the

54:47

Tetragrammaton. Sir, this is what you need to do. Okay? Go you have your strong accordance in front of you.

54:55

Sir, I don't use strong accordance. I teach Hebrew. Okay, so that's a classic clip, and if you want to see that entire conversation, because again, we're just giving a broad overview, and we're going to probably in the next episode, we're just going to analyze a couple of clips of these different groups of Israelites talking in real time and analyzing some of their claims more in depth.

55:19

So if you all have enjoyed this episode, go ahead and like, share this episode, and let us know what you thought.

55:27

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55:34

if you want to support us. You can go to the Donate tab. Donate one time or monthly. So all that being said, we'll talk to you guys next time on Cultists.