Jews for Jesus Café Closes on Shabbos—Christians, We Need to Talk

And I hope you'd ask yourself, you know what? I love God and that's why I believe what I do. Therefore, the system of belief that I now embrace has to be fundamentally wrong, transparently wrong. It's defective. It doesn't work. It's incoherent. It's not compatible with Tanakh. And if it's not, if you love God, and I I presume you do, why wouldn't you want to be obedient to him? Even if you have get out of jail or someone who died for all right, so you don't go to hell, but why not do it just cuz you love God? Like, you know, we had that talk yesterday about Jews for Jesus' decision to close its missionary cafe on the Sabbath. Bintima Cafe right behind me here in the center of Jerusalem. Nako, all Jewish. It's here for the purpose of converting Jews to Christianity. We discussed this that it was very striking that Jews for Jesus when explaining its decision why it had closed the cafe. After all, there were on Sabbath massive protests here in Jerusalem. And that's what made the news. In fact, what stood out in the news was that it was meaning we'll just call them ultraorththodox Jews, but as I mentioned, it's important to point this out. The vast majority of what are called ultra orthodox Jews, that's fine. would condemn the kind of violent when I use the term violent here I mean emotionally verbally sometimes physically violent protests because it's forbidden to protest in that kind of way uh for person to keep mitzvot like the Sabbath one has to do with care and gentleness so it actually violates Jewish law to protest test or give rebuke to someone who's violated to want us to do that with care and gentleness. That's not the point of this. I wanted to say this to the Christians who are watching me. If you are a Christian, have ever been a Christian, if you identify as Messianic, I really want to speak to you for a moment. I wanted to share a thought that's been on my mind. I see so much feedback on the video that went up yesterday that a thought really laid on my heart. So if if you're not a Christian, you're not Messianic, never have been, this is not really for you. Of course, you're welcome to listen in. But I want to speak to you, the person who identifies with Jews for Jesus. Moreover, if you actually work for Jews for Jesus, volunteer for Jews for Jesus, and when I say Jews for Jesus, I almost mean that generically, any messianic missionary organization. So, it could be chosen people or whatever. I want you to just consider this for a moment. Jews for Jesus as I mentioned was handed a softball meaning they saw there was an ex a very explosive response a visceral response so they're opening a cafe here in this area just for those of you who don't know Nakala neighborhood of Jerusalem but the most famous neighborhood of Jerusalem is all Jewish like probably I don't think there are any non-Jews here at all maybe we'll just say it's like 99% Jewish and the vast majority 85 maybe more 90% of it is orthodox I'm not sure and it's quite eclectic and just for those who don't know so straight down that way is the western wall it's like a 15-minute walk so just and if you walk down that way just like one minute you're in the central market called the shook makuda which is really is the center of everything cultural and this the major market here in Jerusalem. It's it's an absolutely iconic place where everyone knows about and no doubt on Friday there are tens of thousands of people that go through it. It's just a place. It's the center for it's not just a market. It's a iconic place of everything Israel, everything Jewish, everything everything. People really enjoy it and it's filmed a lot for good reason. It's very striking place. The point is this is the center of everything. We're in very much the center of town. Jews who Jesus here to convert Jews to Christianity. They could have simply said, "We look back at the book of Deuteronomy, Ten Commandments, and we realize God doesn't want us to be a one Shabbat." That would have been so easy for them to have done. But but here's the question that I want to ask you. If you're a Christian, if you're messianical, however you identify, why didn't they? Let me that means in Christian theology, what I want to do is for the sake of argument, this is why I say this is really for Christians. I'm not conceding a point that the innocent cannot die for the sins of the wicked. Ezekiel 18 clearly 21-23 just can't that means a innocent person might perish might be killed and it causes that death and trauma tragedy could ignite and cause people to repent of course that happened here in Israel and certainly after October 7th no question about that but that's not vicarious atonement but what I I'd like to do and this is really it seems subtle But it isn't at all. I want to for what's called the sake of argument. I want to concede that point because I want to isolate this. I think it's very it's vital and I never get to really express it properly and I really want to do that with you and I hope you'll consider this. Listen carefully. If you're a Christian of any stripe, you believe that the Hebrew Bible Tanakh is the word of God. You might call it the Old Testament, whatever, but you believe it's a holy book. So, I want to for a moment, not grant, but just for the sake of argument, set aside the issue and say that you believe that Jesus died for your sins. Let's say you believe that. And I want to just not touch that because I want to get to another point. So what that means is that Jesus' death on the cross in the view of the church is that means you don't go to hell and Jesus's death is an atonement as a ransom for your sins like Mark 10 verse 45 like Matthew chap 20. So you believe that you escape punishment hell because Jesus died for you. But the question still remains and in fact it begs the question then why not observe the Sabbath? meaning okay so you don't go to hell for violating the Shabbat but nevertheless God hollowed the Sabbath and strikingly he made it holy or declared it holy before there was a people of Israel right from the get-go when he rested on the seventh day Genesis chapter 2 there are no commandments there so the Sabbath the seventh day of the week is intrinsically holy And God says so and therefore tells us that we should keep the Sabbath, guard it. And as I pointed out, lighting a fire on Shabbat is explicitly mentioned in Torah. This is not rabbitic in any way. So cooking is definitely forbidden on Chabas. You don't need any rabbi for that. Engaging in transaction Sabbath is a violation of Tan. And we're told that at the end of the book of as an example because we will buy and selling on Shabbat and they are told they're not allowed to engage in that kind of practice. It's transparent. It's in scripture. So there's no appealing to rabbis here. There's no appealing to, you know, putting the words of men above the word of God. We're talking about strictly scripture in a very plain sense. But the question is the Christian belief that you don't have to keep shabas or you shouldn't keep sh doesn't make sense. Like why wouldn't a Christian let's say you're you call yourself a messianic Jew? I'll just concede that for a moment. Why wouldn't you say look okay I'm not punished if I violate the Shabbat but I know it pleases God. It says it openly in the Bible. I mean, in Exodus chapter 20, it's in the ten commandments. Guard to keep a holy, keep those commandments. It says it explicitly in ex explicitly in Exodus chapter 31. It's an eternal covenant. It explicitly says it is a covenant forever and ever. I mean, the Sabbath is intrinsically holy. It it doesn't matter if you go to hell if you violate or let's say you don't go to hell because you believe you have some sort of dispensation where you you dodge going to hell fine for the sake of argument. But why wouldn't you keep the Sabbath cuz God made it holy and God wants you to keep the Sabbath. And that doesn't make sense to anyone. Now I know some of you going well the Jesus or Sabbath book of Hebrew. Well, there's nothing like that in Tanakh. In fact, it's quite the opposite. We told in Ezekiel 37:24 and 25 which you as a Christian and I both believe is speaking about the Messiah who's called David and the prince that the Jews will keep all the commandments and all of God's statutes explicitly in the text. read Ezekiel 37 valley dry bones verse 24. It just openly says that there's no other way to read it. It's just transparent. What I'd ask you to do, let's say you work for Jews for Jesus. You volunteered for them. You're somehow a part of Jews for Jesus. I I want to appeal to like what could possibly explain why you would not observe it? Jesus died for my sins. Fine. So there's no penalty for not observing. Let's say we concede at all. If I do, all your work is ahead of you. That doesn't in any way begin to explain why don't you observe it as a as a lo as a way of demonstrating your love for God or better expressing your love for God, your loyalty to the God of Israel, your belief that the Torah is the word of Hashem. So why not say, "Okay, I don't think I'm going to hell for violating it, but I want to kill because I know God made it holy." Like, what does Sunday have to do with anything? Nothing. You want to think that Sunday is sort of the Lord's day or that really is later. Ignatius is the one that invented it. And it's transparent that in the Christian Bible that the first followers of Jesus at least were told that they were observing these commandments. There's no mention in the Christian Bible that Sabbath has been changed to Sunday. It just isn't there. It doesn't say that anywhere that the seventh day of the week is no longer holy or the Ten Commandments has been suspended. In fact, it would be very, very easy to make the case from the Christian Bible that Jesus didn't come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. And anybody, in case you don't know what that means, anybody who changes even the smallest part is going to least in the kingdom of heaven. That's a sermon of the mount. That's Matthew 5. Like Jesus in the view of any Christian would be Jesus would never open a store on Shabbat just buying and selling on Shabbat. That would like never happen. Like zero New Testament scholar think that Jesus would have been cooking on Shabbat. Now, we do have in the Christian Bible, granted, examples of where um the disciples were very hungry and they we're told they had to eat early on the book of Mark and the point is made with King David when he was starving. Okay, there's a danger to human life, of course, granted, but there's nowhere where it switched. So my question for you, and again I'm only speaking to those who believe in Jesus. If you don't believe in Jesus, you're welcome to listen in, but this wasn't intended for you fundamentally in your belief system. If you if if Christianity is the fulfillment of Judaism, so why don't you keep Shabbat? Like why would you violate the expressed commandment in Tanakh about preserving the sanctity of Shabbat and not violating its laws? So it's clearly in Tanakh not to kindle a fire in Shabbat, not to engage in cooking, not to engage in in business on Shabbat. So why don't you keep it? because that's what God wants cuz God made it holy. And that doesn't make any sense at all. It means Jews for Jesus. I called it a softball because Jews for Jesus could have just said, you know what, we should be keeping Shabbat. Not because we want to escape hellfire, but because God wants us to. I mean, do you think that God wants us to keep Shabbat the way it says in Torah that it's forever eternal? explicitly Exodus 31:17, it just says it's an eternal covenant. It forever. In fact, in the messianic age, everyone's going to keeping the commandments. But what I want to do is speak to the Christian in your own terms. And what's the therefore? The therefore is if you would agree that God blessed the Sabbath, made it hollowed it, made it sacred because he rested on the Sabbath day. He withdrew from any creative process. Creation stopped the end of the sixth day. If you belong to a religion that that rejects that, then there has to be something wrong with what you believe. I don't mean that in a invidious way. I don't mean that in a bad way. just want you to consider that, to think about that, and I hope you would, and I hope you'd ask yourself, you know what? I love God, and that's why I believe what I do. And therefore, the system of belief that I now embrace has to be fundamentally wrong, transparently wrong. It's defective. It doesn't work. It's incoherent. It's not compatible with Tanakh. And if it's not, if you love God, and I I presume you do, why wouldn't you want to be obedient to him? Even if you have get out of jail or someone who died for your All right, so you don't go to hell, but why not do it just cuz you love God? Like you probably like love your husband and just want to do things for him on his birthday that would not destroy your marriage, but you just do it cuz you want to show him your love, right? Well, that's just fine. Even if it wouldn't mess things up, why not just show God you love him by observing the Shabbat? And if your religion, if your organization says we don't keep Shabbat, and the only reason we're closing BMPa cafe is for pragmatic reasons, then I would posit there's something fundamentally wrong with the belief system. Thank you for considering these thoughts. And these thoughts would only appeal to the Christian who sincerely loves God. Shaatova. >> If you enjoyed this program, please like and subscribe.