Cultish - Leaving the Hebrew Israelites, Pt. 2

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Cultish - Congressmen William D. Upshaw Pt. 3

00:00

All right, welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to Cultish, entering the kingdom of the cults. My name's Jeremiah Roberts, one of the co -hosts here.

00:06

I am back with Andrew, the super sleuth of the show. How are you, man? I'm doing great. And I love that first episode that we did there with you,

00:14

Oscar. I think that was great. But I'm excited to get into the second one to get to know more about you and your testimony.

00:19

Yeah, yeah. So, and if you guys haven't listened to it, to part one, definitely check that out because in there we kind of really gave everyone sort of the

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Skycam view of just a lot of different aspects of the Hebrew Israelites and what they believe.

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But then on a personal level, the only thing you really shared in the first episode was that you came in at the age of 18, where this really became part of your life, part of your identity.

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And just, yeah, if you could maybe go into that and also, you know, in that process, you know, you're now married, you have three kids.

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And also I'm curious to hear, maybe you could share a little bit about how that interwoven worked itself out. So yeah, maybe just go, yeah, share this all just sort of the personal aspect.

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Okay. We're gonna zoom in as far as, yeah. So anyways. So like I said, 18,

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I'm giving a DVD, me and my brother. And we watch it and we immediately start to have an affinity for the teachings.

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And again, it's just fitting into that void that we kind of already have. Not understanding some things about history pertaining to black people and our own personal feelings regarding identity, right?

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It's just kind of filling that void. So from 18, I'd say for about two, three years, again, there's no congregating.

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It's just watching videos, right? I stopped going to church, right? I stopped celebrating any type of holidays and got really specific pertaining to following ceremonial laws, dietary law, things like that.

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It kind of like really isolated my life from a lot of family and things like that, holding to these traditions that they were teaching.

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What would be some of the dietary laws? Dietary laws, so no pork, no fish without scales.

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Those are really the main ones. A lot of the other stuff people don't really eat. It talks about not eating hares or certain kind of animals, birds of prey, things like that in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14.

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How do they feel about alcohol? Alcohol, they'll drink, but again, they'll drink, but they're against strong drinks.

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So you'll drink wine and things like that, but obviously not to being drunk. They say that, but they don't always do that.

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I'll say that. Yeah, it doesn't always play out that way. And I honestly, a lot of Hebrews, they have a, there's always a big discussion regarding smoking weed as well.

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Some of them are like, yeah, we're okay with it. It's an herb, things like that, and other ones are like, no. So that's another conversation as well.

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But yeah, so for me personally, I get into, and then also get into Holy Days, Leviticus 23, and started to celebrate

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Holy Days. Just personally, or me and my brother, me and my brother and uncle are really the three people that I'm kind of, or the two other people

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I'm going through this with. I'm still in Michigan at this time. I moved to Arizona in 2012, and I'm getting in contact.

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At this time, I'm getting in contact with a congregation here, a small congregation here that's congregating in a house.

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I don't actually go until some time later. I mean, my wife, she is Pentecostal at the time, right?

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So again, a whole lot of holes in her theology, right? So when I introduce this Black Hebrew Israelite theology, it kind of fits in some of those holes that she already had.

03:46

Interesting. Right? Again, when there's no solid, fundamental understanding of the gospel, it's very easy for this stuff to come and kind of plug.

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So after some time of being married, we start to go to the congregation in Phoenix. And we're there for a few years, and very, very involved, as involved as you can be.

04:11

I start raising up in the rankings. I'm actually teaching after,

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I don't know, maybe a couple years. So you're teaching here at a congregation here in Phoenix?

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Right, right. There was a deacon there, and I was under him. So they have elders, deacons, and officers.

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And I was like an officer, kind of like a de facto title. But teaching, very involved with evangelizing and everything of that sort.

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We're meeting on Saturdays and Wednesdays and going over lessons. So that lasts for a few years.

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And then I have a falling out with some of them for a while, just pertaining to the way that the body is being governed.

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Everything is top -down, right? So it's not like you have a congregation here or there, and you have an elder or deacon, and they just basically have the last say on things.

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Everything comes from the top, right? So you have guys like Rakal, who was really the face and the leader of this whole organization.

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And then you have some other elders along with him, but they govern from on top.

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So eventually what happened was all of the congregations had to teach the same thing every week.

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That was gonna be my question. You said lessons. So it's kind of like the Watchtower Track Society.

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They're not necessarily doing exegesis, trying to get everything from the text. It's more like there's a lesson plan that you're going through.

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And that's what eventually gets established, and that's kind of what I push back against, because I was teaching.

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And I'm like, you're telling me I gotta teach what someone else is preparing, and I just don't feel like I have any place in doing that.

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Anyway, we fall off for a little while. I end up going back. And the reason why this happened is because a lot of other doctrines started springing up with all of these different elders and deacons teaching.

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A lot of different, there was a lot of discontinuity as far as what was happening. And so to crack down on that, they said, okay, there's gonna be one lesson every

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Sabbath day. If you guys can teach more so of what you want on Wednesday, but now you have to send your lesson in so that they can go over it.

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Approve it. Approve it. Wow. Okay. So again, we're there for another few years.

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And then I moved back to Michigan in 2017. Moved back to Michigan, start congregating with a congregation in Michigan after a while.

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And I had some times where I was really, I feel the

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Lord was tugging on me. I didn't know what was wrong. I just knew something was wrong.

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You're uncomfortable. Right. Spiritually. Exactly. And one of the things that I think the biggest thing was that I seen that there was no power in it.

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So these guys that I came up with this in this movement, right, they were falling into severe sin.

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Oh, wow. Right. And I'm thinking like, and myself as well. And I'm thinking like, where's the power in this gospel?

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Where's the power? And why is it not actually changing me? Wow. Why do I feel no strength against temptations?

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Right. Why am I not able to overcome these obstacles? You know, and why is there no real nurturing that this theology and this organization is giving these young men in order to overcome these things?

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Wow. So that was really what really started to turn me away. And after some time,

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I remember, I actually remember the day I was talking to my wife and I was just like, I don't think we're gonna go back for a while.

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And I just didn't really know why at the time, but I was just like, I need some time to think. I need some time to pray. We had been trying to kind of force our ways into it, you know, and just kind of muscle through it.

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But it was just like no power in it, you know, none. It was all, and there was no newness. Emphasis on the muscle through it.

08:00

Right, right, right. There was no newness to my understanding of scripture.

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Right? It was the same things. I've been in this for eight and a half years. There's nothing new about it. Right. Right? It's the same stuff.

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Right? And so like, for example, when we go to church every Sunday, even if it's not, even if there isn't something new that's being taught, there's a newness, there's a freshness to it.

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Right. Right? Just in my spirit, I feel it, you know? Christ, he's a never ending fountain. Exactly, exactly.

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And that gets down to the eternality of Christ and of the word that's alive. It's just always fresh.

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You read the same thing, you get something new from it every time. But that's if you're reading it right. Right. You know what I mean? These guys aren't reading it right, and so they're teaching the same stuff over and over.

08:41

Yeah, real quickly, when you're talking about the teaching, just to rewind back a little bit, was there an aspect because you said a lot of the teaching came from the top down.

08:50

It seems to me though that there's a lot of pride in your identity as being part of the

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Israelite, and all of a sudden you get promoted to being a teacher. I mean, it seems to me like I'll be able to sit like, oh,

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I'm qualified to teach. I should be qualified to be able to put together a lesson plan.

09:07

Right. But if it's coming from the top down, it almost feels, at least from my perspective, let me know, it seems like it would almost sort of feel like a jab almost.

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Yeah, slight, for sure. Like a slight jab, I was like, well, so I am a teacher, but I'm also, I'm still not good enough.

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I still have to be coached and babysit. Right, right. I'm just a medium. Yeah, is that how you felt? Yeah, for this teaching to come through. Absolutely, absolutely.

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I'm just kind of sitting here to kind of speak with someone else who's already been teaching.

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You're qualified to indoctrinate and answer questions that people have. Absolutely, absolutely. And then a lot of those questions, again, now you got to wait.

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You got to wait for us to contact elders, and then we got to get back to you, because we don't want to tell you the wrong answer.

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You know, there's, as churches operate as individual bodies, you know, within a larger body, right, but under the governing of elders from those particular bodies, it's not like that with them.

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You know, it's an organization that spans all of these different cities and states, and even countries, and everything comes top down.

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So you don't have any personal relationship with these elders that you don't know that are living in. I mean, these guys are living in Egypt and England and Philadelphia.

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We don't know these guys. You know what I mean? So if you could put it on a whiteboard and draw out the names of the people going up from the bottom up, and you were to connect them, would it look like a pyramid scheme?

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Absolutely, 100%. And then along with that, they have a Hebrew Bible Academy. So every day, every Sabbath, they put out a lesson, but then

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I think three or four times out of the year, they have a Hebrew Bible Academy, and everybody's always promoting it because it costs money, right?

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It costs money, they're promoting this, and this money goes directly to the head. It goes to the top, right?

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So this is like our academy. I believe it's like $200, $250, right? And then it's like very strict.

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You can't let anybody watch it with you. You can't send videos, right? It's very, very strict and absolutely pyramid.

10:53

No doubt about it. Wow. Is there an aspect with people who are on the top of preaching something that you don't like, preaching one thing and then doing another, doing something completely different?

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Here's an example. There was a docu -series on Netflix a couple of years ago, Wild, Wild Country, the

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Raz Nish. Remember that you have this guy who's this guru who's talking about being selfless and denying all your possessions, and here he is just driving around everywhere in a

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Rolls Royce. Yeah, just being totally balling and being totally loaded. But that has been the case a lot of times with different gurus and cult leaders where they kind of talk about one thing, about denying possessions, but they're accumulating things.

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They operate in a different way. Yeah, does that happen at all, at least from what you saw, or what's it like?

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So I would say not anything shisty to that kind of level that I've seen personally. And I've heard stuff, but I don't know for sure.

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But what I do know is for a long time there was a teaching that many of the Hebrews referred to as the

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Flea Doctrine, and that was to say that America was gonna be destroyed. America is the

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Babylon of Revelation. America's gonna be destroyed. Get out of America ASAP. Wow. Get out, go now, because it's gonna be destroyed.

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So Jeff Durbin, he told me, when we first started hanging out, he told me about an encounter that you had.

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This is around 2002, so this is 2003, so this is the war on terror era, 9 -11, war in Iraq, all that sort of stuff.

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And so for, you know, Mill Avenue, he was talking with some Hebrew Israelites on Mill Avenue, and he said, he started talking about, he was prophesying that America was

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Babylon, America's about to be destroyed. And he was really propagating that.

12:38

Absolutely. I remember him telling me that. Yeah, they would say that America, or there's going to be a one world government, and that's gonna be the

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Antichrist, the government system. They're gonna say, they would say that America will be destroyed, therefore we're commanded,

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I think it's Zechariah 50, and no, Jeremiah 50, Zechariah chapter two.

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And these two are saying, flee from the country of the north. And they'll say, oh, that's North America. That's US, right?

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Very, very scattered interpretation of scripture. They'll point to it and say, this is telling us that we need to flee

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America before it gets destroyed, right? Wow. And flee into the wilderness of Arabia, the same wilderness that the

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Israelites were in in Exodus. We need to go back. So would the, and I wanna get off track here, but real quick.

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So would the Antichrist, I'm trying to think of the lens through the Hebrew Israelite. Is he a white man?

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Is it, I'm trying to think of it in terms of identity. Like, is it since they're, specifically to their skin color, when the

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Antichrist comes, is he gonna try to be putting all the black people to captivity? And there's gonna be much more oppression before like the second coming of Christ?

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Yeah, blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, but they wouldn't say it's one person. They would say it's a governmental system.

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Oh, it's an entity. Right. Okay. Interesting. Go ahead. Yeah, so they wanna flee the

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United States, basically. This is Babylon, even, which is interesting too, because this is, it originated in both the

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North and South America, but they wanna flee then to Arabia? Right. So is that happening now?

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Because it seems especially, I was just thinking, yeah. You're like, you're, I feel like I already know the answer to your question, but I'm just setting it up here.

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Just because you're talking about one rule of government, and especially right now, and again, we have an optimistic eschatology that God ultimately wins in history, but there are a lot of people right now who, if you believe in a dispensational sort of eschatology, you look a lot at what's going on, and even, and I'm still concerned about it too, about the ideas of one rule of government, the great reset, all these sorts of things going on, but what's interesting though, is that a doomsday eschatology, this is always indicative of the world of the cults, so in the same way that people who, like Clay Frye, who's been on our show, who grew up as a

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Jehovah's Witness, in many ways, remember, he would have nightmares about the end of the world, and not being part of the 144 ,000, and just all that, and assurance, but it seems to me, like right now, especially with all the events going on, that this is, they would be doing this, and trying to see what they could to migrate from the

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United States to Arabia. What have you seen from that? So I was touching on that to answer that first question, is do we see anything that they were teaching that they're not doing?

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And they were teaching that very heavily when I first got into it, and they left. A large congregation of people went to Egypt.

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They were in Egypt for some years, they were in England for some years, and then they came back. When things weren't happening the way that they thought they would, they came back.

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They're not teaching that anymore. You don't hear any talk about fleeing. They came here, they set up shop, they built a church, they built a building, and they're really cozy now.

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They're dropping musical albums, and all kind of stuff. There's no more talk of this flee doctrine.

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You don't really hear it anymore. But I was, but while I was still in it, while I was still in it, a little bit before I left, they were, it was, we were close to leaving.

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I was close to leaving. We were going to Belize. I had some people from my church go to Belize, and they were like, okay guys, next three to six months, we all need to be in Belize.

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Very, very, very serious about that. And regarding eschatology, I can't tell you how much of a blessing post -millennialism has been for me, and my view on history, because prior to this, it was all doomsday.

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It was all type of conspiracies. Can't tell you how many times my wife is crying about this stuff.

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Not having any real understanding of what's happening, but it's looking at the newspaper, looking at the news of what's happening, and it just, it looks horrible.

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A lot of times it looks horrible. And so that was, that fear is used to control, to control the populace or control the congregations and kind of move them as they see fit.

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Yeah, that's huge, and so going back, you said you wanted to take a break, because I mean, it seems to me too, like part of the aspect of the world, the cults, is they typically keep you very busy, very active, always doing something.

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So sometimes, like getting to take a break, you need time to sort of unwind and process, okay, what's really going on?

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And it's very much this pressure on you. Like if you're not involved, you're not serving the Lord. I was gonna say, did they let you take a break?

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How does that work? Right, yeah, I mean, you can take a break, but it's gonna be a lot of judgment on you.

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You're not showing up, you're not showing up to lessons, you're not showing up to holy days. There's gonna be a certain kind of pressure that's on you to do these things, to uphold this righteous behavior.

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So like, you leave and you walk away, people aren't talking to you anymore. You know what

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I mean? Very seldom are people gonna continue conversating with you because you fell away from serving the Lord. If I try to text some of these people right now,

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I'm not gonna get a response. You know what I mean? So, and after they see this, I'm, you know. It's like you went back to wandering in the wilderness.

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Right, right. Essentially. Right, and that's what they would say, like, how would you go back to Christianity? That's what you left. And I would say,

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I never was really a Christian. Not until now. Wow. That's the only way I could get swept off into that is not having a true understanding of the gospel.

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Wow. But I'll continue on what I was saying. I was taking a break and just trying to get my thoughts together, just knowing something was wrong, not feeling any real power in it, seeing my marriage being affected by it, because I'm saying one thing, the church is saying something different.

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And this has been our authority for the entirety of our marriage. And so my wife is looking at this like, well, this is what we've always done.

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Why would we stop? You know what I mean? And so a lot of prayer, a lot of prayer and a lot of just reading for myself.

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But as I was telling you before we started recording, no one sat me down and gave me the gospel, right?

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But I was reading for myself and on my way to work one day, I was thinking about Mark chapter 10 verse 18 and Christ talking about there's none good but God.

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And this is a scripture that they'll use to say, look, Christ is saying he's not God. He's saying he's not God, right?

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And he's not saying he's not God, he's saying there's none good but God. This man obviously didn't know who Christ was, obviously, right?

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And so just pondering that scripture, what clicked to me is that, well, obviously Christ is good, obviously, right?

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Christ couldn't save us if he wasn't good, right? And therefore Christ is God. He says there's none good but God, right?

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And if he's good, then he's God, you know? And so that just clicked to me. Just one morning, like it's four o 'clock in the morning,

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I'm driving to work and it's pitch black. And that clicks to me and I'm freaking out. Like, I'm just like, you know, all of this stuff is going through my head now about all of this indoctrination that I had gotten and just rejecting the deity of Christ all of these years.

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And by God's grace, just to give me that in that moment just randomly was just mind blowing to me.

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Wow. You know, so I worked at a prison at this time and I couldn't have my phone, so I couldn't talk to my wife, so I'm like jumping around, like so anxious to talk to her.

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You know, I eventually go home and I talk to her and I just, with that, so much more came. You know, with the deity of Christ, so much, the gospel came with that.

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It all just became real to me in that moment. I immediately, and I heard the guy, Clay, say this. He said, I just spontaneous believed in the

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Trinity. That's exactly what happened to me. Wow. Just like that, I just believed it. You know, it wasn't like I reasoned and came to it just in that moment.

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It just became real to me. And so that was really me feeling regeneration, I believe, and coming to spiritual life.

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And so from that point on, we've been in a journey to a true biblical foundation and understanding of the gospel and a church.

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And so I don't know if you guys got any questions. I know I'm just talking about - What year was that? That was 2019. 2019.

20:45

Yeah, 2019. Wow. Yeah, so in this process, I mean, I do, like I was kind of jokingly,

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I think we were both talking to Pastor James on Sunday and I was telling James that he's like, you're kind of like the executive, you're the unofficial executive producer of Cultish because there's just so many people that we've talked to that his teachings and just his talks and debates have really helped them solidify, like almost reprogrammed themselves theologically coming out of the cults.

21:13

100%. But, so you're talking earlier about your leader and he ended up having a dialogue with James White.

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You type in James White, Hebrew Israelite, there's this dialogue that's a very colorful dialogue, for sure.

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It's interesting. To say the least. But you kind of, and again, I remember watching that and that was very unique for the, it was the first time

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I'd really heard someone articulate their positions and you would hear claims that King James was a black man or a lot of their theology, but you initially, that played a key role.

21:47

Absolutely. Yeah, explain that as well too. So that video came out while I was still in it, right?

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And that was, there was a huge fallout regarding that because the consensus was that he performed poorly, right?

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Even amongst our own congregation and very much from other rivaling congregations, other rivaling camps of Hebrew Israelites.

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They were just bagging on Rakar for that because they were like, you got schooled, right? You just, you couldn't answer. And Rakar has typically been seen as someone that's very mild manner, very cool.

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And he was not cool in those conversations because he came outside of that bubble. And when it was up against real theology, real biblical understanding of the gospel and he was tested, it just, it fell apart, right?

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So when I first watched that, I had a very, the lens in which I watched it was from an

22:37

Hebrew Israelite understanding. And so I thought like, well, I don't know who this James White guy is, but I don't believe anything he's saying.

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You know, this is Elder Rakar. Obviously what he's saying is right, right? Now in the back of my mind, I'm also thinking like, that was a bad look.

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That didn't look very well. I'm thinking about some of these things that Pastor James is saying, and it's starting to get something churning in me.

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There's already something troubling me and this is just starting to get me churning a little bit. After that experience

23:06

I told you when I was driving in the car, I watched it again. And it was just a totally different understanding and totally different perspective that I had on it.

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And so much of what I come to understand was laid out clearly there.

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And I started to see it, you know, like I said, when this experience happened, I started to see everything differently.

23:26

And then when hearing him just give the gospel plainly was huge for me, was huge for me.

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That's actually, that's the first time I've known Pastor James White is from that debate. That's, you know, again,

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I existed in a bubble. I don't know any of these guys outside of this. So I see him, I see it the first time.

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I see it the second time after the Lord has given me this clarity and it's huge for me. And so I search

23:48

James White, right? I'm like, okay, I need to know who this guy is, man. I see all these books and all this stuff.

23:54

And I seen that he was a pastor at Apologia, right? I am like a month away from moving to Mesa, right?

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I don't know, I didn't know what Apologia was at this time. I see Apologia is in Tempe at the time and that's just in the back of my mind.

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I'm like, okay, that's interesting. He's in the place where I'm going, you know? So eventually when we ended up moving here,

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I started listening to Pastor James and that led me to Pastor Jeff Durbin.

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Then I started listening to guys like Paul Walsh and Votie and John MacArthur and all these different reformed guys. I didn't even know what reformed was at the time.

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But I just knew what resonated with me and what made sense to me. So later on, I ended up coming to my wife like,

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I think we're reformed. I don't know what it is exactly, but all of the guys that I'm listening to are reformed guys and I need to know what this is.

24:42

And then I heard the series that Pastor Jeff did.

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The Tulip series? Tulip. Loved it, so good. And that just wrapped it all up for me. And I was like, okay, we're reformed, we're reformed.

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And I'm like, we're about to go to this church. I told her a little bit about it before and I was like, I was really hesitant because you give these people so much authority over you and they're kind of shaping your life with these teachings.

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So I was really hesitant to put my family and my wife back in that situation. So a lot of prayer went into that and I told my wife,

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I think we're gonna go here, but I'm not ready yet. And about a month later, we show up and we've been there ever since.

25:23

Yeah, no, that's awesome and praise God. And you got to share with me too what you talked about, the very,

25:29

I mean, obviously you're going to this Hebrew Israelite congregation for eight and a half years and talking about your identity and who you are versus, but now just seeing really, it's interesting too.

25:42

I mean, if you think about just our church and just the way that different just culture, ethnicity, there's so much diversity and like, we didn't plan for that, it's just there.

25:55

But especially like you walked in the first time and you just see people from all sorts of backgrounds, different cultures, colors, like you name it, we're all there.

26:05

Yeah, I am. And it's just, there's no affirmative action like this or that, it's just who shows up and is there?

26:10

I'll tell you, I was very uncomfortable. Yeah, wow. It just challenged everything that I've kind of emerged myself in for so long.

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My wife is uncomfortable, we were just like, okay, Lord, we're here, but we don't really, we're not used to it, really uncomfortable.

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But I knew that that's where we were supposed to be. I just, I knew it, there was no doubt in my mind.

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And talking to a bunch of different families in the church and all these people like, yeah, yeah, we moved here for this, we moved here to come to this church.

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Another guy, yeah, I moved here for this and I wouldn't be here if not for this church, I'd have moved somewhere else. And hearing all of these people saying how the

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Lord directed them to apologia. And I'm like, I didn't move here, not consciously for this, but I feel the

26:54

Lord moved me. Providentially. Providentially, exactly. Yeah. Wow. Moved me here for this. So what's like the structure, like if you could compare like the dichotomy between being in the membership in your, when you're in the

27:07

GOCC camp to how the church works now being in a Christian church, like what's the dichotomy there?

27:14

Where's the biggest differences? How is it, does it feel like you're actually out of bondage now, right?

27:21

Now you're finally out of the wilderness, like could you explain some of that? Yeah, so one thing I'll say is just service to the

27:29

Lord is now a joy. When before it was a commandment in the sense that I don't necessarily want to do this, but I have to, right?

27:37

There's no inward changing of the heart. It's just outward. This is what I need to do. This is what the Bible commands.

27:43

But then we see when God is promising the new covenant, he's saying, I'm going to put this in their hearts so that they're careful to do what

27:50

I command them, right? And I feel that difference there. And I see that in the people, right?

27:55

People are here to take joy in the Lord, in worshiping the Lord and serving him. When there, it's bondage.

28:03

You have to do this, right? There's no real changing of the heart though. You just have to do this. And if you don't do this, there's going to be consequences, you know?

28:12

Consequences just in regard in your position in the church. If you gain any type of position or anything like that and you fall away, it's gone.

28:19

You know, you're struggling, it's gone, you know? And then as far as the way that it's structured, again, it's like you said, it's that pyramid.

28:27

And I never even really thought about it like that, but that's what it is. And everything's from top down.

28:33

And so you don't have any type of personal relationship with these guys who are really governing you in your spiritual life, right?

28:39

So to be able to just call and set up a meeting with the pastors, that's mind blowing to me.

28:48

You know what I mean? Like to just be able to talk to the guys who are actually governing the body, who are these under shepherds into Christ, that's not something

28:55

I was able to do. You know what I mean? So to have that kind of, that personal, that more personal experience with these guys is huge for me.

29:02

Wow. Because it was just, I could not have a conversation without a record. Yeah. It just wasn't gonna happen.

29:08

You know what I mean? Yeah. Well, kind of what I'm hearing too and what sounds beautiful to me is kind of what Paul expresses in Colossians chapter three.

29:16

He says, but now you must put them all away, anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of his creator.

29:32

Here there is neither Greek and Jew, circumcised, uncircumcised, barbarian, siddhi, enslaved, free, but Christ is all and in all.

29:39

Like it's like you're finally able to shed this just black and white dichotomy and see now that Jesus Christ is not this hedonistic

29:48

God. He's not a lesser of a God. He is the creator of all. And now we're being renewed to be more like him and see everyone else around you, right?

29:59

And look at them and go, look, I love this person. Absolutely. With the love of God that sustains me.

30:05

And I'm being not renewed in the identity of this Hebrew Israelite nation, no. But in the freeing of the gospel that Jesus Christ is

30:14

King of Kings. He's Lord of Lords. It rests on his shoulder for his nation.

30:19

And now I'm just being shaped by him in the Holy Spirit. Praise God. Only in Christ you're free.

30:24

Absolutely, absolutely. And that's huge what you just said, because I come to understand that my identity is in Christ.

30:31

Amen. My identity is not in my bloodline. My identity is in Christ. And so for me,

30:37

I was actually talking to one of the brothers that I had come up with, who's still a part of this. And he was like, and I've been kind of working on him for a while, just giving him the gospel.

30:47

And he's, again, he's going through a lot of life issues and again, seeing no power in what he knows.

30:52

It's not changing him at all. And I was explaining it to him. He was like, yeah, man, I'm seeing some of the stuff that you're saying, but I still believe that we're the true

30:59

Israelites. And I was like, it doesn't matter, man. Doesn't matter who you are. Just, it doesn't matter. I said, you are a bunch of people in a graveyard talking about who you are.

31:09

I said, you never go to a graveyard worried about what the people were in the graves. Wow. Right? And I said,

31:14

I got out of the graveyard and I brushed all the dust off of me and I'm turning around. I see all you guys arguing in your graves.

31:20

Right? You're dead in Adam, period. Right? And coming to that reality is really what, is what been so big for me is to know that I was dead and to now be alive in Christ.

31:31

It's like the mercies are new every morning. I'm just, I'm just alive with this vibrant spirit.

31:37

Like I can't even put it into words. It's an eternal fountain, man. It's like a, you're not a true

31:42

Israelite. Like I think the Bible, what it tries to paint clear is this, is that Christ is the true Israelite.

31:48

They're supposed to be a light to all nations. They failed. Right? Right. Christ didn't fail. Absolutely. He was perfect in every respect and died.

31:55

So not only that people are, who are literally the seed of Abraham, but others who are not, right?

32:01

The spiritual offspring of Abraham can actually come to enjoy and have a relationship with the creator.

32:08

Jesus is true Israel. Praise the God. Yeah. We inherit his blessings. Absolutely. Yeah. And what

32:13

I love when I'm seeing like the joy that's like, I'm just looking at your countenance and your face. I know you're glowing, bro.

32:18

I'm thinking of like, no, the scripture says where the spirit of the Lord is like, there is freedom. Amen, dude. Like that's, that's a huge thing.

32:25

And I think for anyone, it's like, you don't know. You know, some people, sometimes you don't really have an appreciation for it until the light, until you've been in darkness and the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

32:36

And, and I just thought about this earlier because, you know, we're talking about even that, that sort of that zeal and that allegiance that they have.

32:45

And I'm sure there might be people even listening in or on a colorful YouTube comment section and making a cut a little extra.

32:52

But in many ways they have sort of that zeal. Maybe you'd say that, you know, Paul talks about like, for I testify to you that they have this zeal, but not a zeal that attains for God.

33:01

And jokingly, you know, you're talking about how these look like power rangers or their outfits. And I almost jokingly one time,

33:07

I said, they kind of look like, one of the guys kind of looked like a, it was a scorpion or smoke from civil combat, you know, just with the decorative car, but in all seriousness, that that's the level of zeal that they have.

33:18

For sure. Yeah, and one of the things that I just thought of is in Romans chapter two, and it talks about the value of circumcision, but it says, but in Romans two verse 28, when

33:33

Paul's making the whole case that everyone's under sin, he says, for no one is a

33:38

Jew, who is merely one outwardly, nor the circumcision outward and physical, but a

33:44

Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is the matter of the heart by the spirit, not by the letter for his price is not from man, but from God.

33:53

So what he's saying is that your true identity, cause he's saying that everyone's under sin, but your true identity is not in your ethnicity or not in your cultural background, or, you know,

34:04

Paul gives this whole resume in Philippians two, but he says, I count that all as, Jeff would always say scuba law. Right, right, right.

34:11

It's just a bunch of dung. And so, yeah, that's just a huge thing is that it's an inward change of heart.

34:18

That's where it comes from. So there's no amount of tracing your lineas, tracing your ancestors that can give you ultimate peace.

34:28

Anything. You have to find it through having a new, through having a new nature.

34:35

I mean, that's the context when Jesus said you must be born again. Like he's, what he's talking about here is referring to the old covenant language in Ezekiel, talking about,

34:44

I'm gonna take out your heart of stone. What is that, 11? Yeah, give you a heart of flesh. And this is one of the things too

34:49

I'll say is that when you talk about the world of cults, we always sometimes be at negative reviews on iTunes saying that, you know, we're actually just a cult talking about other cults or whatever, and, or just, you know, giving us criticism because we're unapologetically

35:04

Christian in regards to how we approach things. And this is one of the things too, that any other approach to the world of cults fails, and I would argue falls short because you're dealing, they're all workspace systems.

35:19

But if you have, but if you're in a situation to where you have a changed heart and you're right before God, you don't need to have these overbearing burdens and shackles over you.

35:33

Yeah. Absolutely, and I think that was huge for me coming to that understanding as well is that our works flow from our salvation and not the cause of it, right?

35:42

That was huge for me, you know what I mean? Huge for me to understand that because now all of my works are just taking joy, abounding in the finished work of Christ.

35:50

He already finished it, right? And I'm just abounding in that finished work and I'm showing that love for him in what

35:55

I'm doing. I'm not doing anything to gain anything. I can't add any works to what Christ already did. And that's huge, you know, and to know that all of our works was as filthy rags, all of this work and that people did, it's for no end.

36:06

Yeah. I know the Bible speaks about ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth.

36:12

You know, 1 Corinthians talks about how by wisdom we can't reach God. And I feel like that's what a lot of these cults are doing.

36:18

They're trying to reason their way to God. And you're always amiss there, you know, unless the spirit of God has given you this understanding.

36:25

I think 1 John chapter one says, it's not by the will of man, neither the will of flesh. Right, we're not born again by our own doing.

36:32

Right. You know, but that the Holy Spirit has to awaken us, like it says in John three. So all of that just became clear to me.

36:38

And really there's some things that the spirit, I believe made clear to me. And then as I read it, it just fit in what was already kind of revealed to me.

36:48

As I heard it taught, I'm like, that makes sense to me. You know, and just now there's so much for me to feed on.

36:54

I'm getting into like church history and this is something I never touched before. And it's so intriguing to me, you know, all of this stuff is so much for me to feed on.

37:03

It's super exciting, you know. I love it, dude. I love it, bro. Yeah. What would be some examples too of like, as you're coming to Christ, I mean, there's almost an aspect of like theological deprogramming you're talking about, like going into church and just seeing this broad variety of different cultures and ethnicities just in the whole body.

37:23

But just, you know, having verses passages like Deuteronomy 28 or just proof texts that they use, was there some challenges as far as like having to unlearn a little bit of that stuff or was it just, or some people it's like that, other people it's just like,

37:41

I just have this new hunger for God's word. What was it like for you? I think by the time

37:47

I got to apologia, all of that had already kind of faded away. The Lord had kind of done away with it.

37:54

But I'll tell you, there's been a couple, I've talked to a couple of the people that I came up with and one of them actually came to the church one time and the first thing that he said was, he's like, why aren't they talking about racism?

38:06

You know? And that's just where his mind is. He can't see outside of that. You know what

38:11

I mean? He can't see outside of this plight and see that there's any sin outside of it.

38:17

So Pastor Jeff's up there talking about abortion. He's like, why they're not talking about racism? Do you not see the evil of abortion?

38:25

You know, do you not see that the Bible is coming or Christ is coming in the scripture to free us from all sin, right?

38:31

Is racism a real sin? Of course, right? But that's not it. It doesn't stop there. You know, there's so many different issues that the gospel has to triumph over and that's just one of them.

38:40

You know, so for me, like coming and seeing this diversity of people was just really eyeopening for me. And it wasn't like I had to like fight against some kind of urge to be around all black people, but it was an uncomfortability that had to kind of, you know, that had to kind of get smoothed over before I could kind of open up, you know?

38:57

Yeah, that's an interesting thing to think about. Like you can't triumph over racism with a racist religion.

39:03

No. It's just not possible. Only through the freedom of Christ and that's what's being preached to end abortion, to end racism, to say that, well, guess what?

39:11

In Christ, we are made free to love one another in the spirit and truth. And there's no other message that does that, that can reconcile everything.

39:19

There's nothing else that does that, you know? Absolutely not Hebrew Israelites. I mean, you're propagating the problem. You want to continue the problem, even into salvation.

39:27

Yeah. You want to be racist in the millennial reign? That's crazy. Yeah. That's just wild to me.

39:33

Yeah. No, we talked about during the break, I just totally forgot about this is, and this has to do with having real peace, real rightness with God in contrast to the gospel of the

39:44

Hebrew Israelites. So there is an aspect to their whole aspect of salvation as far as reincarnation goes.

39:51

Can you just elaborate on that just a little bit? Right. So the organization I was a part of, they did believe in heaven and hell.

39:58

They believed that, like I said, that millennial reign and then it would go into final judgment of heaven and hell. But most of the organizations teach reincarnation, most of them.

40:07

And this is where a lot of splinters happened because people started saying that they were all these different biblical characters reincarnated, right?

40:13

But they teach annihilation, they're annihilationists. People don't go to hell and suffer forever, but they're annihilated, just done away with, right?

40:23

The interesting thing about that though is the same words that are telling us everlasting joy and paradise are the same words that are defining everlasting torment.

40:33

These are the same words. So if you do away with hell, then you also do away with heaven, you know?

40:39

But they teach, like there is some, and I'm trying to remember, the guy that I was talking to, it was three guys

40:45

I was talking to at MAT and they were teaching that. They were talking about reincarnation and they believed that if you die, you're gonna come back as I'm a black guy,

40:57

I'm gonna come back as a black guy. And this is how they keep, you know, whoever, whatever you were before, you're just gonna continue to come back in that same race.

41:05

And this is how they keep all throughout eternity, these people separate, right? And they don't believe in the mixing of nations or anything like that.

41:12

So that these people can stay pure pretty much. But I'm not,

41:19

I don't think that that goes very deep. You know, I don't think it goes very deep with how they teach that.

41:24

Well, you're saying that too, there's been a lot of fragmenting and splinters because a lot of them will claim to be like Solomon reincarnated.

41:32

Absolutely, yeah. And a lot of splinters happened from there. I mean, you got ISUBK in the 60s and from that you have well over 30, you know, prominent organizations that kind of splinter from that at various different times.

41:46

There's a splinter from GOCC. You know, ISUBK, there's multiple splinters from there.

41:51

And it's because their theology is always changing, right? To account for different things.

41:56

They don't have the gospel, they have this thing that's ever moving. Pastor James was like, they're a moving target.

42:03

You know, they're trying to account for these different things and so it's changing. One guy said he was the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, he went to Israel and said, yeah,

42:10

God told me I was a comforter. You know what I mean? And so that was a splinter right there. They changed the name, another group came up.

42:16

It's so much of that. Yeah. When the word of God is no longer like an objective standard and reading it literally as a whole, you fall prey to every wind of doctrine, you know?

42:26

And so that what they use in Isaiah 28 and 11, precept upon precept, you can use that however you want. If you're not taking it as a whole, you can make it say anything.

42:33

Yeah, LDS used the same argument. Like precept can be really subject to however you want to define precept.

42:39

It's the frog in boiling water is what it is. You know, take it slower, take it slower. We'll take it line by line, line by line.

42:45

And all of a sudden you're boiling in the water and yeah. Real quickly, like what would be some like go -to, what would be some go -to passages if you encounter them?

42:54

Like what are proof texts that they refer to? Can you just give a couple of quick examples of what they refer to then? And how would you, how would we respond then as a

43:01

Christian? Or how would you respond, especially given what you know? Okay. I'll say one of them, and we were talking about this earlier.

43:09

You were saying, when do people, they have to believe that there had to be a falling away in like a reawakening. Right. And that's in,

43:15

I believe that's in Hosea. And they say, after two days, the Lord will awaken you. So this is another thing. Dealing with the

43:20

Genesis, they believe that those seven days are 1 ,000 year periods.

43:27

Okay. Right, and so all, anytime that the Bible is referring to a day or most times they think that it's 1 ,000 years, right?

43:34

So when it says in two days, the Lord will awaken you, I think it's Hosea six. Okay. It's 2 ,000 years. 2 ,000 years, okay.

43:39

So that's how they're saying, okay, around this year of 2 ,000 years after Christ's birth, then the children of Israel will be awakened to the new identity.

43:49

There was one I was telling you about when it talks about the nations make a tumult against you. And that's in Psalms.

44:00

And this is really one that they point to, to really one that they point to, to show that all of the nations are in this conspiracy to kind of keep the identity of Israel away from them.

44:15

So it's Psalm chapter 83, and I'll read it really quick. Psalm chapter 83, verse four.

44:29

And it says, I'll start at verse two. For behold, your enemies make an uproar. Those who hate you have raised their heads.

44:36

They lay crafty plans against your people. They consult together against your treasured ones. They say, come, let us wipe them out as a nation.

44:43

Let the name of Israel be remembered no more. And that is the foundation of that conspiracy. All of this stuff is happening to take this name away from us, to take our identity away from us, right?

44:53

And my response would simply be going back to what we were saying there, all are one in Christ, right?

44:58

And that's really the concept that they're missing is this unity of man in Christ, how we're all one in Adam, and now we're all one in Christ, those who are in the new covenant.

45:07

And that covenant theology is just huge, understanding Christ to be that federal head of this new covenant, and how

45:16

Christ is essentially saying he's making a new man, right? A new tribe of people that are distinguished from those who are dead in Adam.

45:25

And so that's how I would kind of respond to that. Yeah, so there's a lot of verses, like I said,

45:32

Deuteronomy 28, but again, the answers to them are all gonna really be the same because all of their keystone scriptures are dealing with their identity, right?

45:41

So it's not a whole lot, that's why I said it's long, but it's not very deep, you know? You answer a couple of them and you've kind of answered them all.

45:48

Yeah. Yeah, like you mentioned before, that their theology is this, but it's a very wide, wide playing field.

45:55

So in many ways, they can be kind of all over the place. So yeah, I guess this has been, there's a whole lot,

46:02

I feel like we've just barely scratched the surface and perhaps we could have you come on again to go more in depth. But this is really, again, just an example, this is a huge movement that is just really exploding, not just across North America, but really across the world.

46:17

Like I said, there's notable different celebrities, Amari Stoudemire, the hip hop artist you mentioned, my mind's reading a blank.

46:23

Eshaan Burgundy. Yes. And there's a lot of other prominent characters too, that it's just really taking a life of its own.

46:30

Kendrick Lamar, he had said some stuff about being, yeah, too many. Yeah, it is. So it is very important, and especially,

46:37

I'm sure there's gonna be people who are gonna listen into this podcast, or again, even on our YouTube channel, and that'll be obviously interesting to see that.

46:45

But if, just if we're saying, if you could just speak just from the heart for anyone who's listening in, who's really sort of attributing their identity to being a true

46:56

Israelite, and maybe they even have a little bit of that, maybe they're feeling a little hostility right now, but they're still listening in.

47:03

Right, right. You know, they're kind of in that spot. Like, what would you say to them right now? I would say that the gospel is, the gospel is commanding us to die, right?

47:13

Not to live, but to die, right? And I think the Bible is telling us that we're all dead in trespasses and sins, and so when a dead man dies, he lives, right?

47:22

We're now alive in Christ. We're zombies walking around, and Christ tells us to take up the cross and follow after him, and that's a death march, right?

47:29

It's not about who you are, right? It's about who Christ is, and that has really been the center point of me getting out of all of this, is focusing on Christ and who he is, focus on the divinity of Christ.

47:42

You know, why it's important that Christ was born of just the female, just his mother, so that he couldn't be under the curse of Adam, right?

47:52

So that he could actually be this federal head and that the law could be the means by which he fulfilled our righteousness on our behalf, right?

47:59

Our righteousness that was not available for us, you know? So that's really what I would point to, is come to know who

48:06

Christ is, right? With an open heart, not reading with the Hebrew -Israelite lens or any other of these cult lens, but come to the

48:13

Bible and pray that that clarity is given to you, because I think Christ is what shows us who we really are, right?

48:21

We see the holiness of Christ, and therefore we see our sinfulness, and he also shows us who the father is. He says, if you've seen me, you've seen the father, right?

48:27

So he's like the center point of all, the cross is the crossroads. Everything is centered on that piece.

48:33

And if we can come to understand what happened on that cross, I think everything else makes sense, you know? And as long as you don't, you'll be caught up in things like genealogy.

48:41

You'll be caught up in this kind of esoteric, gnostic kind of viewpoint of scripture, and that only you understand this.

48:49

And you've now separated yourself from all biblical authority leading up to that point, all the teachings of the early church fathers, and you're isolated now, you know?

48:59

You have nothing to fall back on. You have nothing to correct you, you know? And so that's what I would point people to, is just focus on Christ, and men throughout the years who have given their lives to the studying and the teaching of scripture.

49:10

I'm just bathing in all of that now, and it's just been amazing for me, so. Well, awesome. Well, I think that's a good way.

49:17

I think it's just good to end it on that. So, yeah, that's a perfect ending. So if you guys really enjoyed this episode, again,

49:23

Oscar, thanks for coming on. Thank you, man. And we'll definitely, I'm sure there'll be plenty of questions that people have, and we could probably do a follow -up to this at some point.

49:33

But if you all enjoyed this episode, definitely comment on our social media, let us know what you thought, leave us a review on iTunes, and definitely appreciate you all listening to us on a weekly basis.

49:44

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49:50

Tuesday in these fruitful conversations, especially amongst these crazy and strange times, you can go to thecultistshow .com,

49:58

go to the Donate tab, you can go donate one time or monthly. All right, all that being said, thank you all for listening in, and we'll talk to you guys next time on Cultish, where we enter into the kingdom of the cults.