The Sean McDowell Show - Jews Are Coming to Faith in Jesus—A Sign of the End Times?

Episode Date: August 12, 2025

Why so many Jews are rethinking Jesus? Is a quiet revival happening amongst secular and religious Jews? Jeff Morgan from Jews for Jesus is here to explore a growing movement of Jewish men and women coming to believe that Jesus is the Messiah. He also shares his compelling story of becoming a follower of Jesus. What does it mean for the church and for the future of evangelism?SUBSCRIBE: SO BE IT! YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@SOBEIT32AD *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf)*USE Discount Code [SMDCERTDISC] for 25% off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM)*See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK)FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://x.com/Sean_McDowellTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sean_mcdowell?lang=enInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/Website: https://seanmcdowell.org

Are Jews coming to Jesus today in droves? What's the evidence for this claim? And if it's true, is it a sign of the end times? Our guest today is Jeff Morgan, the host of the So Be It YouTube channel, and he works with Jews for Jesus. Jeff, I've covered a lot of apologetics topics on this channel. While I've discussed Jewish outreach on my podcast, I've never done it here. So thanks for coming on and tackling this with me.

Man, I'm excited to be here, Sean. Thanks for having me. When I heard some about your story, I immediately thought we've got to start there because it frames everything that you do, who you are, your ministry. So how did you become a follower of Jesus? Well, it's a beautiful, miraculous story. I grew up in a Jewish home, and we weren't religious Jews, but we definitely observed the Jewish rituals in a lot of the traditions. So we didn't talk about God in the home, but our Jewish identity was very important. And I think that's a good thing to distinguish is that a lot of Jewish people ethnically live a Jewish life.

They're part of a Jewish people group, but they're not necessarily part of the religion of Judaism. And so we grew up as Jewish people. We went to synagogue. I had my bar mitzvah at age 13. I wrapped the philactories, put the yarmulma on, went to Jewish summer camp, and went to Hebrew school, did all this stuff, and was part of Jewish community. And I left my home to go to college, and then in college, I realized I don't want to be studying. I'd rather be doing the arts, singing, dancing, choreography, songwriting.

So I went down to Los Angeles, horribly insecure. I mean, I was bullied as a kid. I was a gymnast, and so, you know, the guys would pick on me, and I was Jewish, so the Catholics would pick on me, unfortunately. My parents have some anti-Semitism in their history as well. And it was a little bit of a rough time. So I left the house insecure. And when I went down to L.A. to try to become a pop star, I realized I didn't really have what it took.

I was lacking peace. I was lacking any kind of stability. I was lacking self-confidence. And I thought, how am I going to become confident? I'm jealous. I'm envious. And Los Angeles is a wonderful place. If you're really interested in diving into New Age spirituality, they have all kinds of wonderful things to offer with no necessarily, no necessarily moral accountability, right? But you can kind of have it all. All the spirituality

you want without God. And so I dove right in, meditation, mind control, mantras, you name it. The occult, You know, I had some out-of-body experiences. I got in touch with a cult leader who I started following. And this proved to be very dangerous in the long run because this person had complete control over my mind. And I was very, like I said, insecure, but I was also very easily influenced, naive. And so I kind of hung on to everything that I could,

that seemed right. But because I didn't grow up with God in my home, there was no Bible in my home when I went out into the world I didn't have anything that that stopped me from diving into things that would be considered dark and so I'm I'm practicing all this new age I'm meditating and I'm feeling like I'm having these spiritual experiences John which I was I didn't know where they were coming from but I thought that I was getting in tune with this higher power and my spirit and all that stuff and in my 20s it was really cool because I was having these experiences.

I thought it was like, wow, well, I may not be a great performing artist. I may not be successful in school, but I'm going to be the most spiritual person anybody knows, and everyone's going to come flocking to me for life lessons and advice. That's who I'm going to be. That's how I'm going to be great. And so as I'm going through this, I start to feel a little bit tormented, a little bit controlled by some sort of impulse that I couldn't disconnect from, as this was happening.

And I thought, well, maybe I'm just connecting to God. And this is the way that it works. I didn't know any better. So I hadn't had any experience in the Old Testament to understand who God is. And I didn't have any experience in the New Testament to see his promises being fulfilled. So I didn't know what to trust. So I'm trusting whoever sounds best. And so I start going up on the mountaintops and meditating and having all these weird

spiritual experiences, out of body experiences where I'm coming up out of my body, floating away and coming back in and I was awake. And I'm thinking, wow, I'm really doing something here. And then I had this impulse to move away. I was living in California at the time to Israel. I thought I was going to disconnect from everybody that I know. And that's a very common thing when people get into real deep new age spirituality is that you're told to disconnect from anybody that could be a negative influence in your life. So if your parents are causing you trouble, your best friend's causing you trouble, you're disagreeing with them, your brothers, your parents, your girlfriend, whatever, leave them all and get rid of any negative influence

that you possibly can. So I did that. I cut off. I took a one-way ticket to Israel, and I spent some time there. And I'm, you know, I'm going down to the Judean desert. I'm meditating down there. I'm thinking, wow, I'm like the coolest guy I know. And I'm getting arrogant. I'm becoming narcissistic. I'm becoming isolated. And I'm thinking that's what I'm supposed to do. And thank God, I met my wife. I met my wife in Israel. And we had two kids relatively quickly on purpose. And what that did was it slowed me down a bit because they weren't having any of my new age spiritual stuff. I'm like, hey guys, meditate with me. Come put your fingers together like this and sit like this and clear your minds. And they're like, why? I'm like, because it'll make you feel

great and when I started to say those things Sean I noticed that there was some sort of dissonance between what I was saying and how I was feeling because I was trying to bring them into like a more peaceful state a more elevated state but yet within myself over the years I'd becoming more and more depressed and anxious and distant from my family and I couldn't figure out why because I thought I was doing all the right things you know think positively and all your dreams will come true you'll be able to manifest your own destiny and and i thought that i was really powerful but yet my my reality wasn't showing that and so over time my my reality and my philosophy were getting farther and farther and farther apart until it reached a breaking point in my mid 40s so we're

talking 20 years of this yeah and i'm really disciplined right so i'm really working hard and i just where i'm moving my family back and forth from place to place and i'm finally like honey, I'm miserable. I think we're going to be happy if we move from Israel to California where I grew up. We're going to get, you know, in touch with my old friends. It's going to be great. And she's like, I don't think so because you're becoming more distant from me and my and the kids and you're not showing me any affection. You're doing all this meditation stuff and you don't have time for us. And I'm thinking, oh my goodness, you know, something's wrong here in my family. And so I thought, I better get myself, you know, in shape. So I start showing her more

affection. She's like, okay, let's go to California. So two months later, we're back California and she's like I'm worried that in about eight months to a year you're going to do the same thing it's all exciting now but you're going to dive into depression again i said i promise you i won't well eight months later guess what happens i am wrecked because i couldn't figure out how to make life work and i'm 46 and i asked the question is it going to get any better than this i'm going to be 50 soon and i honestly said to myself there's a good chance that it won't And that's when suicidal thoughts started to come in. There was something that I hadn't told you before,

but there was this impulse that was telling me to cut myself and burn myself and try to make myself grow up. So I was being controlled by something. And all of a sudden, I realized that, oh, my goodness, I broke my promise to my wife, and I don't think that I'm going to be able to get out of it this time. I don't think I'm going to be able to make it out again, and get back up and try one more time.

So I fell to the floor, and I just cried, and I just said, honey, I am completely lost. I have no idea what I'm doing anymore. I am a failure. We're in debt. I have nothing to pass on to our children. I have brought our family into this mess, and I have no idea how to get out of it.

And I said, I'm finished. I'm done. I quit. I quit life. And she looked at me, and she's thinking, how am I going to take the kids out of here, go back to Israel, figure his stuff out. And I'm thinking, I'm about to lose my family. And I said, that's it.

I have no idea what I'm doing anymore. And I got up. And it was that moment that Jesus started to reveal himself to me and my wife and my older son at the same time separately every day for about a month and a half. We would have experiences that were related to Jesus. Everywhere we went, but separately, I'd leave the house and someone would talk to me about Jesus. Someone would pray for me in the gym. You know, I'd go to the gym, and I met this guy, and he's like, can I pray for you? And I'm like, what does that mean? So he prays for me. He's praying the Psalms and everything. And at the end of the prayer, he says, in Jesus' name. And I'm thinking, I'm a Jewish guy in the gym. What do I do with that? But I said, I don't care. I don't have

anything to lose. Amen. Right? Amen. Next day I come back, I ask for more prayer. And I ask for more prayer. And I drive by a church. I drive by a billboard. I see things that are all related to Jesus. I turn on the television and I see a documentary related Jesus and I start to weep, but this time it's tears of joy, not tears of anguish. And my heart starts to well up. And I'm going to remind you, Sean, that I don't have any context for the Old Testament or the New Testament. No context. So I didn't know what was happening to me, but something was happening. So I'm welling up with joy and my wife comes home, tells me about an experience that she had regarding Jesus. And she's Google searching Jesus and miracles. And I'm talking to people about

Jesus. And my son goes to church. He's invited to church, one of his friends from school. And he comes home and talks about how he learned about Noah and Abraham and Jesus. And it was so cool. And but as a Jewish family, we were like, what do we do with this? We have no context. But yet something is changing with me and it's very powerful. And the only thing that made sense to me was that it had to do with Jesus. Because he was the new, he was the only thing that was happening to us at the time. So this guy at the gym, he invites me to church. He was a guest, he was a pastor, a associate pastor, and they're teaching on the transfiguration of Jesus.

So this is the first time I'm in the church on purpose. And I go there, I'm sitting down in the front row, and the pastor starts to teach about how Jesus takes his disciples up onto a mountain. And all of a sudden they see who? Moses and Elijah talking to Jesus. And I'm like, wait a second. I know these guys, Moses and Elijah, but what are they doing on this side of the book talking to Jesus?

This is really strange for me. But Moses and Elijah made me feel like, okay, this at least relates to who I am as a Jew. I'm going to listen. And so you know the story that the abridged version is the cloud, the voice comes out of the cloud, and Jesus representing, Moses representing the law, Elijah representing the prophets, and Jesus standing there in all of his radiant glory, Elijah and Moses are gone. And the voice comes out of the cloud and tells the disciples, this is my beloved son. Listen to him.

And that was it, Sean. Listen to him. My mouth was, I was like this. I know this to be true. Jesus is the one I've been looking for. So I ran home and I told my wife and I said, honey, honey, it's him. It's Jesus. This is the one we've been looking for like the disciples.

When they ran and told their other brothers, hey, this is the one we've been waiting for. And that's what I felt like. And I said, but honey, I've got a problem here. I'm tormented. I feel this thing controlling me and I don't know what to do about it. And also as Jews, how are we supposed to do this? Are we supposed to get on our knees? Are we supposed to say something?

And what if it doesn't work? What if we say the thing and it doesn't work? And that was my mentality, that out of my mouth has to come the right thing for something in order to work. And I said, honey, I'm tormented. I have no idea what to do. I just know Jesus is the truth. She looks at me and she says, you know, I wasn't going to say anything, but I had a dream last night.

And I'm running through a story. I'm running through a school yard with a group of kids, and one of the kids branches off to the right, goes into a room by himself, and I go to the room, I open the door, and I look inside, and there's a young boy in there trembling with fear, and there's a demon standing over him, tormenting him, and I woke up.

Now, if you saw my wife, she's petite, she's Israeli, she has the little accent, you know, and she doesn't use the word demon very much, you know, she doesn't use the word demon, right? She's never used that word before, but she says there's a demon tormenting him, and all of a sudden she goes like cold and her eyes open and she points right at me and she goes that boy was you and that man that you were following when you were younger was not who he said

he was and i knew at that moment to be that to be true my i got the chills i looked back into the bible verse listen to him and at that moment everything that i had been feeling for the last 20 years this weight on my shoulders this spiritual torment this depression anxiety suicidal thoughts, it all fell off and it like hit the floor. My arms went up and I said, I'm free. I was shocked. I'm like, I'm free. I am free. And I didn't know that that was supposed to happen to me. And at that moment, we both dropped to our knees, knowing that Jesus was the truth and we gave our lives to him, not knowing what to say or do, but I said, Jesus, you just took this from me. I've been trying for 20 years to get rid of it and you just took it from me.

put me to work for you. I believe in you. I believe that you are the Messiah and the savior of the world. I devote my life to you. Thank you for taking away what I needed, what was tormenting me for 20 years. The next morning, I woke up a completely new human being. No filth could come out of my mouth. I had a foul mouth. No swear words could come out of my mouth. When I went into the gym, I wasn't looking at other women. I was looking for my Christian brothers and we would be praying in the gym. Something had changed in me. I felt clean. I felt cleansed. And God actually showed me how dirty my life had been previous. And I felt to the floor again, but in repentance with a contrite heart. And I'm going to repeat this,

Sean. I hadn't read the scriptures yet. So I didn't know that these things were supposed to happen to me. But when I went in and devoured scripture, because God gave me a heart for his word, I found what happened to me in Scripture, and it blew the way. I destroyed my idols. I took all my statues. I stomped on them. I trashed them. I said, nobody deserves to have these.

And I devoted my life to God at that moment. I was having night terrors, and those were gone. And I'm not going to say that I don't have any issues now at all. I'm a family man, you know, and I have a full-time job. I do missionary work and ministry work here in Israel. Life is tough. but god you know i get to walk through this now with god instead of on my own power and so that that that really is what drove me to do what i do today jiff that's incredible i have so many things

about your story we could we could unpack but thank you for sharing that that's it's dramatic and it's life it's life changing i appreciate your vulnerability in talking about it i imagine some could say okay jeff this is one story of somebody converting to Christian faith and there's been people who've converted away from the faith in the past and to it in one sense this is nothing new but you've talked about how more and more Jewish people seem to be coming to faith today at an unprecedented rate what do we mean by an unprecedented rate and what what's the evidence that maybe something has happened in that regard today yeah that's a great question and I just want to preface with the fact that that Jesus is for the Jewish people

He's for the world, absolutely, but he is for the Jewish people. In Jeremiah 50, verse 6, it says, my people have been lost sheep. Their shepherds have led them astray, and they've forgotten their resting place. And this fulfillment, you know, in Matthew 15, verse 24, Jesus says, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, clarifying the scope of his earthly ministry. And then obviously he sends his disciples out to bring in the world, which is just such a beautiful thing because we see,

God's plan for the nations, the Gentiles, all along within the Old Testament or the Hebrew scriptures. And so even today, actually, at Jews for Jesus, we realize and recognize, and we're trying to get the word out that the Jewish people are an unreached people group still. And so when I ask people what they think of what an unreached people group means, they'll say, well, oh, it's some tribe somewhere, or somewhere in the jungle. But Jews, they're living amongst all of us everywhere. And I'm one of them. And we're still unreached. But, you know, organizations like Jews for Jesus and through our YouTube channel, so be it, we're rapidly helping change this reality. So I take surveys and polls lightly because they may not show

exact numbers, but they can show trends. So estimates and surveys, like there's a 2020 report from Lifeway Research and Israel College of the Bible, which is pretty close to where I live. There's about a million Jews worldwide that have embraced faith in Jesus as Messiah. About 870,000 of those living in the U.S., 30,000 in Israel, and there are all over Europe as well. So if I go back to like 2012, there were around 350,000 Messianic Jews worldwide. And a 2020 survey by the Kaspari Center identified over 15,000 Messianic Jews in Israel, across 280 congregations. Now, I'm going to go back to 1948 with the recreation of the state of Israel. There were only about 23 reported, sorry, Jewish believers in Jesus in Israel.

And by this time now, 2025, estimates show that there are around 30,000 Messianic Jews in Israel or Jewish believers in Jesus showing significant growth. And some would even say up to 50,000 to 60,000, but those numbers aren't exact. So we're seeing a massive increase in Jewish belief and Jewish faith in Jesus in the world. I see it here on the ground, and we see the statistics coming in with Jews for Jesus.

And I do have some actually more interesting statistics here that 21% of U.S. Jewish millennials believe that Jesus was God and human form. form. 28% view him as a rabbi or a spiritual leader. And many millennial Israelis say that in our video. So I'll be interviewing somebody on the street. And I'll ask him, what do you know about Jesus? And they're like, well, he was Jewish and he was a rabbi, right? Or a spiritual teacher, right? And so that's pretty cool that people are kind of recognizing him more as that instead of, you know, a heretic or a sorcerer, you know, and then there's other statistics like, you know, 42% celebrate Christmas, you know, which kind of just reflects on the blending of religious

identities. So tell a lot of. Yeah, those are compelling stats. And I've heard other ones about the growth of congregations, Christian congregations in Israel and beyond that seem to tell a compelling story within our lifetimes in the 20th century and beyond. Do you have any sense if these are primarily secular Jews, like your background, religious Jews, Orthodox Jews, or just all of the above? Yeah, it's all of the above, but we know more of the secular Jews and the somewhat observant Jews that come to faith. There are a lot of consequences within the Jewish community about sharing the fact that

you're a Jewish believer in Jesus. And so even though there's a growing number of Orthodox Jews who believe in Jesus, they usually keep their faith secret or they reach out to us in secret and anonymously, excuse me, because of community pressure. They can lose their families. They can lose their kids. They can be kidnapped. There's a lot of things that are going on and I don't want to say too many things about what can happen because it's looking at the Jewish community, and we'll get into this a little bit later, there are reasons why they react so viscerally to Jewish faith in Jesus. And, you know, but generally, generationally, many are unaware that there are multi-general

Messianic Jewish families where children are being raised in Messianic congregations, embracing both their Jewish heritage and faith in Jesus. So the secular ones are more easy to kind of like jump out and say, hey, wow, you know, I love it and I believe in Jesus and I don't want to share it with the world. But we're seeing Jews from all, and actually, some of our, some orthodox Jews who believe in Jesus do leave messages on our channel and send us emails. That's really, really interesting. Is there any sense of the kind of Christian faith? And what I mean is like that former Jews would embrace, not so much former Jews, they maintain their Judaism, but those who embrace Jesus. Is it high church, low church, more of a Baptist persuasion,

more of a, I don't know, Pentecostal? Like, are there any threads that tie together when Jews follow Jesus? Yeah, actually, I mean, you name it all. I mean, I mean, we have Jewish believers in Jesus and the thing that binds us all together, Jew and Gentile, is the belief in Jesus' life, death, burial, and resurrection as an atoning sacrifice, and by putting our faith in him, we have forgiveness of our sins, our sins are forgotten, and we have reconciliation with God, and our sins are, you know, wiped clean and, you know, we have forgiveness. And that's the central. And so there's many different expressions within Jewish faith in Jesus regarded that, just like there are in the Gentile or the non-Jewish world. And but one thing I think that

separates most Jewish believers is that we still follow and observe Jewish cultural and religious traditions. You know, we just celebrated Passover. We just know, we just know. We just know. that the Jewish Passover points very clearly to Jesus, his death, his burial and his resurrection, with all the elements. And, you know, I think I like to say this, you know, B.C., you don't really see it, but A.D., you kind of see it more clearly when you have the elements on the table and you see the sack of the blood of the lamb on the doorpost that has, you know, death passing over. And you being freed from death, and then there's a redemption happening. We see the matzah that has stripes and pierced in it, sorry, stripes and pierced in it, and it's broken, buried, and brought back. So we still celebrate

these Jewish traditions, but we see the fact that Jesus has either fulfilled them or he will fulfill them in his second coming. And so a lot of Jews, they still, you know, celebrate these traditions. We love our traditions. We love being Jewish. And we realize that God does have a plan for the Jewish people. And I think it's important. A lot of people will kind of push back on that and say, well, Jeff, there's no Jew and Gentile. There's no slave, nor free.

There's no male nor female. So why are you emphasizing your Jewish identity? And I usually say, and you know this very well, that Jesus joins us together as one. And that's the meaning of that passage. It doesn't mean that my wife is no longer a woman. You know what I mean? Yeah, and so when someone said, well, you're no longer a Jew, and I'm like, of course I'm a Jew.

It's like if a Chinese person was a Buddhist and they came to faith in Jesus, they would still be Chinese, but they would be a follower of Jesus. And that's why it's important for us to emphasize as Messianic Jews or Jewish Christians are Jewish identity because God hasn't forgotten as Jewish people. And if you want to read more up on that, you can read Romans 11. and, you know, read more about his plan for the Jewish people. You can read more about messianic prophecy, which we'll get into a little bit later, I'm sure about all the people of Israel being saved and coming to faith, recognizing their Messiah. And so one thing that I left out of my story is three months after I was saved and I gave my life to Jesus,

I got baptized. And a lot of Jewish believers do that. And so I attend a non-denominational. church i have some jewish friends that are attending more um pentecostal or um what's it called the the word that we use for charismatic churches and some that go to baptist churches and so it's it's really just across the board i'd be really curious why you think more jewish people are coming to faith today is it technology that you've got this captivating youtube channel and instagram is this something cultural that's happening? Is it a shift in evangelism? If we can know, what do you think

are some of the reasons why we're seeing this awakening of so many of the Jewish people to follow Jesus? I think God is truly opening the hearts of our people. I believe that technology and digital outreach are huge in all of this. The internet and social media platforms make it so much easier to access information about Jesus from a Jewish perspective. And so when someone's in their room and they're unsure about Jesus, they don't know, you know, they don't have access to a New Testament. They're not going to walk into a church, but they surely enough can click a button and watch a video anonymously in the privacy of their own home and get information that they've never had before. And so technology has been massive. You know, on our Soviet YouTube channel, in the last

two years, Sean, we've had like 70 million views and we have Jewish people reaching out to us from all over the world. I've been watching your videos and you talking to Jewish people on the streets and you're sharing from the Old Testament and putting it all together and it all seems to just make sense. But they wouldn't have been able to find that out on their own. And I've watched people, someone very close to me actually as well who just prayed to receive Jesus. I'll try not to get emotional, but it was it was through the help of the technology, the ability to get this information that has been hidden or kept from the Jewish people for millennia. And so ministries like Jews for Jesus, we use our online campaigns, videos,

social media to reach as many people as we can. And we have cultural shifts going on all over the world, a growing openness among younger Jewish generations to explore spirituality beyond traditional Judaism because when you think about it to a Jewish person there really is only like two choices I might say three choices religious judy orthodox Judaism secularism or like Eastern mysticism but they don't recognize another option that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah and Savior of the world they don't recognize that and so they don't count that as an option. It's something that's pushed away. And one of the coolest things that I've found is that when we do a lot of our ministry and evangelism outside the gates of the old city

of Jerusalem, some of our biggest, dare I say fans or admirers are Orthodox Jewish students, 18-year-olds, 19-year-olds, 20-year-olds. They're some of our biggest admirers. They'll come up to us And they're like, we've seen your videos. We really appreciate what you're doing. We don't always agree, right. We don't always agree with what you're talking about. But we really appreciate the fact that you, and they would have no access to this if it wasn't for the Internet

because they're completely surrounded by Jewish culture, by Jewish tradition, and by Jewish law, and by rabbis. And so it's been really, it's been really cool. And also, you know, global events are really important. So when there's like political and social upheavals. You know, this leads in people to seek spiritual answers. You know, after October 7th here in Israel, I mean, people were like starving for answers and where is God?

And they start to read from the Psalms and praying for God to have mercy on the Jewish people. And so people are becoming more and more receptive to the message of Jesus because they realize that their life has been shaken. And so their hearts are open more. Jeff, the title of this video is that Jews are coming to faith in Jesus. Is this a sign of the end times? Undoubtedly, some my followers with that title I think, oh boy, Sean, are you veering into predicting when Jesus is coming back?

And just for the record, you will never see me say Jesus come back on this date or that date. That's for sure. But the Bible does talk about certain signs, broadly speaking of the end times. So I'm really curious how you think so many. Jews coming to faith in Jesus right now might be a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy and a sign broadly speaking of the end times. Yeah. And so I think what's really encouraging to Christians, and when I say Christians, I mean Gentile Christians, or non-Jewish Christians, when they see Jewish people coming to faith, they can see God's plan for the Jewish people

coming into fruition. And as more and more Jewish people put their faith in Jesus, we can see God's plan moving along. So if you think about it this way, before 1948, people were living in pre-prophetic times with regards to the in-gathering of the Jewish people from around the world, the secular in-gathering, just bringing the people back to Israel. We're not talking about the spiritual in-gathering. We're talking about the secular in-gathering. And so they were looking forward to a hope. And when 1948 came around, they saw biblical prophecy being fulfilled right in front of their eyes. And so when we look at passages like Isaiah 10, verses 21 through 22, it says a remnant will return the remnant of Jacob to the mighty God. And then in Romans 11, it says, so too at the

present time, there is a remnant chosen by grace. And so the modern messianic movement is seen as the continuation of this remnant. So it kind of links to that partial, um, blindness of Israel, right? It would be a temporary blindness, but it will be a blindness nonetheless. And so a partial blindness will come over the people of Israel. And I like to just make that point clear that I believe the Bible is pretty clear on it when it says that when it means that a partial blindness means that a part of the people of Israel will be blind, but there will always be a remnant that will be able to see and understand and believe in God. And so when we think back to the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Daniel, and so on, Moses.

They were considered righteous because of what? Because they obeyed the law? No, because they believed in God, and they followed him. Despite their sins, despite their transgressions, they believed in God, and they believed in God's promises. And so when we have Jesus splitting time in the middle, we have the patriarchs of Judaism looking forward to God's promises and believing in God's future promise. And when you have Jesus standing in the middle and you have people after coming after Jesus,

you have people looking back and believing in the fulfillment of God's promises. And there are more to come. So in Isaiah 6, verses 9 through 10, he says, go and tell this people, be ever hearing but never understanding, be ever seeing but never perceiving. Make the heart of this people calloused. And now I was a gymnast when I was younger. and so when I would do the bars and the rings and everything, my hands would get so calloused and tough and hard.

My skin got very hard and tough. And that's what this means. Make the heart of this people hard and tough. Make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise, they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed. Isaiah 29 says, The Lord has brought over you a deep sleep.

He's sealed your eyes. He's covered your heads. For you, this whole vision is nothing but words sealed in a scroll. If you give the scroll to someone who can read it and say, read this, they will answer, I can't. It's sealed. And so what I'm trying to say is that the prophets and even King David basically predicted a blindness over the people of Israel.

And so they'll be blind, they'll be deaf to God's message, and this just illustrates the condition of the spiritual blindness that we're in. And so when people say, how can the Jews not see? see their own scriptures and see the fact that Jesus is the Messiah. Well, first of all, it's prophetic. And second of all, there was always a time where all of us couldn't see. And God had to open our spiritual eyes to be able to see. And so in Romans 11, like I said, I mentioned earlier, it says a partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. and in this way, all Israel will be saved.

And so the growth of Jewish believers today, and we see that through the statistics, is often interpreted as evidence that the veil is being lifted. It's beginning to lift. And it's just so beautiful, because when you see it with your own eyes and you see a Jewish person going, no, no, no, and then they open their eyes and they go, wait, yes.

It's right here in our scripture. You can see God actually making that switch in the heart of the Jewish person in our people. And I've seen it happen again and again. And it's just so beautiful to see. And so in Ezekiel 36, it says God promises to gather the Jewish people back to their land and give them a new heart and spirit. And so the establishment, like I said before in Israel of Israel in 1948, and the growth of the Jewish believers are seen to be a fulfillment of this prophecy.

and so you know jewish acceptance of the messiah would be a key sign before his return and so i can have a little bit more scripture to to quote here if that's okay with you do it in zacharii 1210 it says they'll look upon me god speaking here the one they have pierced and mourn for him as one mourns for an only son and so when we see that we look at this prophecy you see God speaking about the people recognizing God being pierced and mourning for him as an only son. And so this is something that when we look at as a future prophecy, we can start to see that happening as God opens the eyes of the Jewish people

because this is not a magic potion where God just says, poof, everybody recognize me. This happens as Jewish people open their heart, as the gospel is shared, because God uses us, you know, in his plan. He uses us to share, to talk, to bring the knowledge of him to our Jewish people. And who has made the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, known to the world more than one man, Jesus. Nobody. Nobody. And so in Matthew 23, it says, you will not see me again until you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. So the growing number of Jewish believers in Jesus today is indeed seen as prophetic foreshadowing of this national acknowledgement.

That's a great take. I love that. Really, really helpful. The scope of scripture that you're pointing to as this being fulfilled from Isaiah and Zachariah, etc. I think it's compelling. I'd be really interested in your take, Jeff, from your experience, especially talking with so many Jewish people who become believers in Jesus and some who don't, about some of the biggest barriers. that jewish people tend to face in coming to christ so one that i hear is that the treatment and sad reality that christians have so often mistreated jews throughout history how significant is that just kind of in the psyche of a jewish person and how do you respond when you hear that i think that's one of the biggest stumbling blocks honestly i was in jerusalem a couple of weeks ago and I was interviewing a young orthodox Jewish gentleman. And I told him I was a believer in Jesus.

And as soon as I said the name Jesus, I could see him just viscerally reacting. And I said, what's wrong, man? And he says, when you said Jesus, my skin started to crawl. And I said, why? And he said, because we have been killed, tortured, we have been taken from our people. we have been a genocide has been committed upon our and and it's that's that's happened through Christians and the name of Jesus and I'm like wow I'm going to have a pretty large hill to climb here when it's speaking to him and so that seems to be a reaction to a lot of Jewish people

because past events like the the Crusades the Inquisitions the forced conversions they've caused a lot of skepticism and rejection of the Christian message even though the Christian message, you know, with Jesus, you know, talking about loving your enemies and and bringing peace and, you know, a nonviolent way of spreading his message. You know, it's, it's, it's, you have to kind of really break that down and say, well, well, yes, evil people have done evil and wicked things in the name of all kinds of things. But what does that have to do? with Jesus. And what that does is it really challenge, you can empathize, but yet you challenge them to actually look into what Jesus actually taught. And so one of the most important points we like

to start with is that Jesus was Jewish. You know, he was born into a Jewish family, he lived as a Jew, he followed Jewish traditions, his teachings were deeply rooted in Jewish scripture, and he often affirmed the Jewish faith. So therefore anti-Semitism, which seeks to demean or attack the Jewish people is contrary to the foundation of Jesus' life and message. So, you know, Jesus didn't come to condemn or reject his own people, but to bring fulfillment, you know, to the promises that were made to the people of Israel. So his coming as Messiah was in part to bring Israel and the world back to God's original purpose. But, you know, obviously the abuse of the Jewish people and the abusive scripture has led to a massive, massive stumbling block.

Yeah. Yeah, that's really helpful. I was reading a book. by Askinnis on kind of our civilizational moment. And when I had a chance to interview him as well, one of the points he makes in the book is just one of the greatest stains on the history of the church is the mistreatment of Jewish people. I mean, he says it boldly in his book. And that's what causes us to lose a lot of credibility with a wider culture and especially with Jewish people.

And I think about Jesus weeping over Jerusalem, if he were physically present and could look back at this, he would. probably weep as much, if not more, for the treatment of the Jewish people, of whom he was apart and love and came first for. That's such an important point, not to mention the most well-known famous critic of hypocrisy in world history is Jesus. And to see Christians mistreat Jews in the name of the very faith that was meant to do the opposite is just as grievous of a sin. as one can find, but that's really helpful that it's such a stumbling block, and I appreciate begin with empathy.

I just want to make a point real quick about the fact that I do want to say that I've met countless Christians, countless Christians, non-Jewish Christians that absolutely love, support, and uplift the Jewish people. And I'm thinking to myself, okay, these are real Christians living out their faith. faith. And my parents had a difficult time with that because they would bring up the anti-Semitism. And I said, let me introduce you to some real Christians. Let me introduce you to people that actually live the Bible and live Jesus' teachings. And they were floored. They were floored by the love. When October 7th happened, I was like, how do I go on, what do I talk about now on

the streets with people? How can I empathize? I'm going through this myself. You know, I'm in the bomb shelter too. Yeah. You know, and I come out on the streets. And I thought, gosh, what can I do? And I really felt like the Spirit of God gave me an idea to go out and share Christian supportive comments that we get on our channel with the Jewish people. And literally it brought people to tears to see how real Christians were loving and supporting them. The real Christians that believe in Jesus' teachings and follow him truly. And so another reason why Jewish people don't believe in Jesus. Jesus is just a misunderstanding of Jesus' role as the Jewish Messiah.

So, you know, many Jewish people see believing in Jesus as abandoning their Jewish identity, not realizing that faith in Jesus can be a fulfillment of their Jewish heritage. We have in the Tanakh, you know, the Hebrew scriptures, prophecies like Isaiah 53 pointing to the suffering servant who takes upon the sins of the people. Psalm 22 is often viewed as a prophetic depiction of Jesus' crucifixion. Psalm 2, you know, kiss the sun, lest he be angry and you perish in the way. Blessed are all those who put their trust in him. You know, we have Proverbs 30, who has ascended into heaven or descended.

This is like a riddle, you know, who has gathered the winds in his fist, who's bound the waters in a garment, who has established all the ends of the earth. What is his name? And what is his son's name, if you know? So we have all these prophecies that point to the Jewish Messiah, and yet we have these theological barriers. we have these rabbinic interpretations that have kept the eyes of our people blind to what scripture actually says.

Sometimes we're in Jerusalem and we're interviewing Orthodox Jews and we'll ask them questions about the Old Testament, the Hebrew scriptures, and they'll say, we don't study that. If I want to know anything, I'll go to the rabbi and ask them. And that's very common. And so those are some of the biggest issues is that, you know, the traditions that are passed down, the teachings that are passed down, Jewish anti-Semitism, and that really keeps people away. It's really helpful to think about like cultural reasons somebody has a barrier, emotional

reasons, somebody has very relational reasons. Theologically, what would be one or two of the biggest ones? If you have that conversation, is it the idea of the incarnation, God taking on human flesh, is it salvation by faith, is it the Trinity? What are one of the two that seem to bubble up to be the biggest barriers? Exactly what you said, and that was very insightful. I would say that one of the biggest things is the incarnation because they wouldn't believe that God would come through a human being and become a man. It just doesn't make sense because Jewish people, they live by what we call the shema.

You know, hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You know, God is like none other. You know, he's not. And they generally quote numbers where it says, is not a man. And they usually use that to show that God couldn't or wouldn't ever become a man. But that just kind of breaks down when you really get into it because, you know, you can look in Exodus and see God is a man of war. And so you can realize that these things are used to make analogies and to make comparisons. And so when we really look through the Hebrew scriptures

and we see Abraham speaking with Yudhay Vavhe, you know, the Yahweh. And this person that he's calling Yudhei Vavhe or Yahweh is eating food and having his feet wash. And he's raining down sulfur and fire from heaven, from the Lord in heaven. So you have this interesting duality here, not necessarily the Trinity here, but you have this interesting duality here where you have the Lord Yudhei Vahe on the earth, raining down sulfur and fire from the Lord, Yudhei Vafhe, in heaven. And so if you actually take the Hebrew scriptures and you read through them slowly and deliberately, you can see God appearing to Jacob, you know, and in human form, you know,

where Jacob says, I've seen God face to face and my life has been delivered. He was expecting to die. And there's many other appearances, really, of God in the flesh. And so this is something that has been really taken and hidden from our Jewish people. No, no, no, that's not what it really means. It means something else. You know, it was a vision. It was a spiritual thing.

But no, you know, the text is very clear. And so even in Jewish literature, some rabbis look at some of these passages as evidence of God's plurality. And in the Targum, which is the Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Bible, They use the word Memra or word, we would say the word, in the translations or the Targums to suggest a distinct personal manifestation of God. So these aren't things that are completely foreign from Jewish history. They're just more foreign to our people in modern times because we have new, because of Christian persecution or Catholic persecution against Jewish people,

we had rabbis that were forced to create new interpretations of messianic prophecy, to say, well, wow, if their God is killing us or telling them to kill us, then our interpretation of must be wrong. This can't be a Messiah. It must be something else. And so prior to this medieval shift, you have the plurality of God being something that was talked about within Jewish tradition.

Another thing... Oh, go ahead. Yeah, go ahead. Another thing is salvation by grace. We both know you and I, Sean, that Christianity is the faith where God comes down, God condescends, God takes it upon himself, and it's for us to humble up ourselves and say, I can't get to you on my own. I need you and I need Jesus as my atoning sacrifice. I need him as my cover, or how we say in Hebrew, Kapala, our cover. I need you as my mediator. And it's very difficult for the human pride to accept that grace because we want to say, I can get there on my own merit. And Jewish tradition is very, very heavily based.

It's very heavily merit-based. I'm going to observe the commandments, and I'm going to pray, and I'm going to do good deeds, and hopefully I'll make it to heaven. And that's up for God to decide, but hopefully I will. And I believe that I'm good enough to make it. So salvation by grace is a very difficult concept, and it contrasts very sharply with the Jewish focus on the law. And yet, what I think you're so wise to do is to point back to the Old Testament at these hints and foreshadows of what we see fully revealed in the new.

Like Genesis 15-6, Abraham believed, and it was credited to him as righteousness. there's something about faith and belief built in Genesis 18 there's three travelers that are angels and are human and you know Abraham speaks to him as a Yahweh Genesis 32 like you said with Jacob he wrestles with God who renames him by the way which is an authority that God has and yet he's a man I think there's far more hints in the Hebrew scriptures which is why those of you watching who are Christians friends don't just read the gospel read them, study them, but we can only understand the Gospels in light of the Torah and the rest of the Hebrew scriptures. Are there any other big barriers that I've missed? Do we cover kind of the

biblical and historical ones? Yeah, well, we've covered most of the barriers, you know, with anti-Semitism, the theological barriers. But I did want to mention something else with regards to what you said about the appearances of God in the flesh, this is something that is so foreign to our Jewish people, and yet it's so embedded in the Hebrew scriptures. And if you take, a lot of people out there are New Testament only, and if you take the Old Testament out of the New Testament, you have the holiest book you'll ever find in your life because it will be filled with massive holes. You won't have any story.

You won't have a narrative. You won't have any kind of relating back. You won't have any continuing storyline. And you won't have a New Testament. Without the Old Testament, you don't have New Testament because there are over 800 to 1,000 illusions, references and direct quotes to the Tanakh or the Old Testament in the New Testament itself.

And so I just wanted to mention that point that how important it is to take the Old Testament seriously. Jesus believed it. You know, he said that, you know, if he believed it, we must as well believe God's promises from that. And you can really only understand God's promises and his future promises by understanding the Old Testament. I've been reading the gospel, John, almost in its entirety, you're listening to it every day for weeks. And it just begins with, in the beginning was the word. the word was with God, the word was God. That's a reference to Genesis chapter one.

And then over every single chapter in John, in some fashion, is pointing towards Jesus as being the Messiah, being the prophet, fulfilling the Old Testament. It's impossible to understand who Jesus is apart from the Scripture. So even Christians, if you want to understand the Gospels minimally, for that reason alone, read the Old Testament, although it's so rich within itself. Talk to me a little bit about some of the challenges and costs that Jewish people will experience when following Jesus.

And is there a difference if somebody is a secular Jew versus Orthodox Jew in America versus, say, in Israel or somewhere else? Yeah. Well, the first thing I want to say before we get into the challenges, costs, what you gain as a believer in Yeshua, Jesus, far. outweighs any repercussion that could come of it. I mean, you're not only talking about peace, you're not only talking about reconciliation with God, you're talking about eternal life with your creator and with those that you love who have put their faith in Jesus as well. And it's just there's a joy that that is within the background of all the troubles that happen within the world. And so I just wanted to preface with that because the social repercussions are there. Some people have rejection from their families and communities. And in secular

communities, just as Orthodox communities, people can be ostracized from their families and their communities, kicked out of synagogue. They can, you know, don't come back with that stuff. You can be told to leave the house. You're no longer my son. You can have divorce. You can have custody battles with kids because of these things. There are professional consequences, potential discrimination in the workplace here in Israel and so forth. We see that happening in Jerusalem. There are personal struggles as well, which is really reconciling Jewish identity with faith in Jesus. Like how does this work? And so as Jewish evangelists, evangelizing to our Jewish people, we like to open the New Testament. And we like to have our Jewish people read

the first sentence of the New Testament. And when they see the genealogy of Jesus, the Messiah, son of David, son of Abraham, they go, what? What is this? I thought this was something else. You know, the Messiah is supposed to come from Abraham. He's supposed to come from the Davidic line. This is really strange. I thought this book was something different. And so, you know, these are struggles that we kind of help assuage with our testimonies, which are very important. We have tons of, tons of testimonies on our YouTube channel Soviet of Jewish believers in Jesus and the joy that they have and the reconciliation they have with God and the purpose and meaning they now have in life. Some people are delivered from amazing things like I was, and some people just

kind of gradually find themselves being sanctified over time. But just love the Jewish Messiah so much. And so, you know, these are real repercussions and real consequences. But honestly, with the spirit of God living within us, it's worth it. It's definitely worth it. Amen. I love that. And, of course, this question is not unique to people who leave Judaism, so to speak, and become a follower of Jesus. So many of my ex-Muslim friends have paid a drastic cost. Some who've left the Church of Jesus Christ to Latter-day Saints. And many times those who've left the Christian faith are not treated well and lovingly and respectfully as well. With that said, one last question for you. Or two, I want you to tell us about YouTube channel in a minute,

kind of what you do. But first off, when I speak with a lot of former ex-Muslims, dozens and dozens. In almost every case, there's some pretty drastic supernatural vision or miracle that they've seen or dream that they've had. Is that common in the Jewish world or less so as far as you know? I would say it's very similar because it all involves access, access to the New Testament, access to preachers, access to those that are sharing the gospel. And in many cases, those that are in isolated within a Jewish community or isolated within a Muslim community, they don't have access. And so they experience dreams.

They might encounter someone that talks to them. They might go online secretly and a video pops up. I've had this happen many times where I get comments or emails from Jewish people and they say, I'm an Orthodox Jew. and I was scrolling on the internet and you popped up and I felt scared looking at your thumbnail but I was so compelled to click that I clicked and I'm so glad that I did because I watched your videos and it helped it all make sense and I came to believe in Jesus now my wife had a dream that helped me God brought people into my life in all shapes and sizes, you know, to tell me about Jesus. And I would call these miraculous events,

but yes, we have very similar experiences where you'll have Jewish people that wake up in the middle of the night and they'll feel a presence in their room and they'll feel unbelievably at peace and they'll know for certain that it's Jesus. I've heard that many times. I love that. It's been incredible, so encouraging and fascinating. I appreciate your boldness and clarity. You've talked about your YouTube channel a little bit, but tell us how else people can follow you, and if they go to the So Be It YouTube channel, what they might expect to find. Yeah, so So Be It was a wonderful brain child of mine when I was really trying to think, what am I going to do with myself? And I thought, I love people, and I love talking to people,

and I love probing and engaging with people. So we took some cameras onto the streets, some microphones and we just started interviewing our own people here in Israel. And that's how we came up with So Be It. We worked hard. God has been blessing it. And so that's one way you can see our street evangelism, Jewish believers in Jesus sharing their testimonies, some podcasts on how we dispel myths and overcome Jewish objections to Jesus by using scripture. We don't use polemics. We don't use, you know, ad hominem attacks on people. people. We just go to scripture. And we trust that God can do the miracle in our people's hearts. So so be it. You can find us, which is a project for Jews for Jesus, which leads to the

website of Jews for Jesus, which is Jewsforjus.org. Jews for, F-O-R-Jus.org, which they have videos there. You've got amazing articles. You can sign up for the newsletter. It's really, if you want to dive deep into understanding Jewish heritage, Jewish history, and Jewish faith in Jesus. We're also on Instagram. We're also on TikTok and Facebook. You can find us there too. Jeff, you guys, you're doing great work. Just the YouTube channel in itself, you know, somebody's like, I'm not sure that, you know,

maybe the topic doesn't intrigue them as much. Just the quality of the interaction and the dynamism and the videos are just interesting and done well on that level. Of course, I think it means so much more. I really appreciate you coming on. Thanks for your time. Thanks for your boldness to do this in Israel. You haven't talked about it,

but I'm sure you get a fair share of criticism in person and online, but you do it clearly because of your story, your love for the Jewish people, your love for the scriptures. So our prayers and support are with you. Thanks so much for coming on, Jeff. Yeah, Sean, thank you so much. And I really appreciate what you do because one of the first videos I saw of you

was when you went into that classroom or, you know, that big room with all the college students and you cosplayed as an atheist. That was the first video I saw of you. I'm like, who is this guy? I thought, that was pretty cool. Because, you know, because we really, as we raise kids in the Lord, it's really important, not just to teach them from the Bible, but apologetics as well. How do you defend your faith?

And you're so good at that. So I just appreciate the work you do as well. Well, thanks, that's a perfect segue to encourage our folks to hit subscribe because we've got some other videos coming up on defending the faith, a range of topics. We're going to reconsider near-death experiences again, but talk about when atheists have a near-death experience, which promises to be interesting, and responding to some objections against my case for the fate of the apostles. If you thought about studying apologetics, we have a fully online program here at Talbot School theology, and this topic in terms of reaching the Jewish people and beyond is near

and dear to our hearts. So find some information below and think about studying with us. We'll see you next time. Jeff, thanks again for coming on. Thanks, Sean.