Sid Roth - The War Already Started, But People Don't See It
Sid Roth: Welcome, Holy Spirit, go and flow. Dr. Mitch Glaser was born and raised in a traditional Orthodox Jewish home. From a drug dealer with a gun to his head to a Ph.D. and the leader of a major Messianic Jewish ministry. Hey, that's quite a jump.
Dr. Mitch Glaser: It's a journey.
Sid Roth: Tell me a little bit about it.
Dr. Mitch Glaser: A little bit, Sid. I was born in the Holy Land. Brooklyn.
Sid Roth: You got me on that one.
Dr. Mitch Glaser: My grandparents all came from Europe, one side from Russia, the other side from Poland. My mom's parents, very Orthodox Jews. They made sure I went to a very Orthodox Hebrew school. And so from age eight through 13 went to a traditional Hebrew school, and every summer I went to Orthodox Jewish sleep-away camps. That made me pretty Jewish.
Sid Roth: Were you kosher at all?
Dr. Mitch Glaser: Yes.
Sid Roth: I remember the first time someone served me a ham sandwich.
Dr. Mitch Glaser: And you secretly enjoyed it.
Sid Roth: And I enjoyed it.
Dr. Mitch Glaser: But as a good Jewish boy, you felt guilty for enjoying it.
Sid Roth: Oh, I was so guilty. I went to the Pope. No.
Dr. Mitch Glaser: I would say that I didn't really believe in God. Well, I was a nice Jewish boy. And then as time went by, I became a bad Jewish boy. And so at the age of 17, I went to college at the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut. And why? Because the word on the street was that it was a Jewish party school. Kids there were Jewish and they made some good Jewish friends and they were as bad off as I was, but I was a better business person. And so I started making money selling drugs, and then finally we decided to leave. I went to San Francisco, stayed at a really nice place the night we got there, it was a phone booth. Then we stepped up, moved into a laundromat, which by the way can be a very warm place if it's an all-night laundromat. Then my friends and I decided to build a houseboat in Sausalito, California. We began building this houseboat as a shack on barrels. One day I was doing probably a larger drug deal than I should have done, and with some seemingly very nice people. And they were all armed with pistols and sawed-off shotguns. And they tied us up and guy says, just kill them and take the money, take the drugs, kill them. And they didn't pull the trigger. You always hear when you're in a moment like that, your life flashes before your eyes. But I was barely 18, but I knew that my life was going nowhere. And it was that experience really that began my search for God.
Sid Roth: Tell me about the phone booth.
Dr. Mitch Glaser: I got a job with the Marin County Board of Education as an outdoor education counselor. The job was out in the Redwood forest, 60 miles south of San Francisco. And then one day I ran into a young woman who had lived on the houseboat with us, but left and decided to go to Oregon to go to rock festivals and to enjoy her life. But she had gotten pick up hitchhiking by two brand-new two-week-old born-again on fire, ex-biker, Gentile Christians. And she started telling me the story and said the woman turned around and said to me, honey, are you saved? I mean, can you imagine? I said, saved from what? I don't know the lingo. I'm Jewish. She says, no, do you believe in Jesus? And I said, no, I'm Jewish. That was supposed to end the conversation. That's what we think. But you did get saved and then came down to tell us. And that's how I met her that day. She started telling us, Jesus is coming again. The end of the world is coming and you need to believe in Jesus. I said, you're nuts. You've been drugged. He decided to go up to Oregon with her. Then they began writing letters to me telling me about Jesus. And so I went up there to save him, Sid. I got up there and the old guy who was running the place, every time I asked him a dumb question, because I was very argumentative, he said, just read it in your book. Smart. He hands me my book, which is the older Testament. I began reading the older Testament. Then I read in English. Remember the first time you started reading the Bible and it was incredible. I mean, I was turned off to the Jewish religion, but I wasn't turned off to being Jewish. I wasn't turned off to the Bible. I read it and all my heroes were there. And you know what? They had a relationship with God. I never noticed it Abraham, David, even Moses. And so I went back down to my campground and all I could think about was what they were telling me. I could think about the Old Testament, I could think about my relationship with God. And all I could think about was Jesus because that's all they talked about. I asked God if he was real. And I said, if you are real, show me. That night I brought one of my kids to a phone booth in the camp. He was crying, wanted to talk to his mother, and the moon beams were just coming through the redwood trees. It was beautiful, flowing. And there on the ledge was a copy of a book called Good News for Modern Man, and it was glowing in the moonlight. I looked at this and I said, okay. And I looked at the front, modern English version of the New Testament. I took the book and I began reading it at night and I loved it, but I was laying for Jesus because we all know that Christianity is anti-Semitic and Jesus must be the fountain of anti-Semitism. I kept looking to see where he was anti-Semitic. Instead, he celebrated Passover, celebrated Hanukkah. He also was a street-spark New Yorker. Did you know that?
Sid Roth: Now I know it.
Dr. Mitch Glaser: He never answered a question that was insincere with a straight answer. Proverbs says, answer, not a fool. In their follyless, they think themselves wise. And Jesus embodied that. And so I felt comfortable with Jesus, but then he made claims about himself that he was God in the flesh, that he was the Messiah. I don't know how people read the New Testament and say he never claims to be the Messiah. Of course he does. And so I knew that he was claiming to be the Messiah. And then I was left with the decision. Do I believe it or not? You want me to tell you what I did?
Sid Roth: Please.
Dr. Mitch Glaser: I believed it.
Sid Roth: Mitch, I have to ask you what is behind this explosion of anti-Semitism worldwide? I've never seen so much in my lifetime anyway.
Dr. Mitch Glaser: It didn't begin in 1948, and it didn't begin after October 7th, although it was quite stirred up. I don't know what we did as Jews because anti-Semitism came at us simply because Israel defended herself, which she had every right to defend herself. But I remember just a few years ago, wasn't there a synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh?
Sid Roth: Yes.
Dr. Mitch Glaser: One of the men who was killed, his son is a Jewish believer and I know that son. And so you had people there. Then you had people killed by North County, California near Escondido. And then the next thing is in New York, you actually had an anti-Semitic guy go to tirade at a Hanukkah party up in Westchester and put a hatchet through a rabbi's head. And so anti-Semitism has been revving up. And then of course it comes to a head with the allegedly pro-Hamas, which are really anti-Israel, which is really anti-Zionism, which is really anti-Semitic marches. You have this tidal wave of anti-Semitism, almost seven-hundred percent more in the last, post October 7th than in the previous year. And so what is it? I only have sincerely said one response. And there's nothing funny about this, believe me. And that is this is from the devil. We have to recognize that there is another realm that's going on that we don't see, but we know is there. Paul tells us that. You don't fight against Earthly powers, it's principles and powers, heavenly principles and powers that are going on in heaven. You look back at the book of Daniel and you see that there's an angelic war going on in heaven and Gabriel's fighting and Michael's fighting. Then there's this spirit attached to Iran, to Persia, and there's a battle in the heavenlies. It's a battle for our souls. It's a battle for our nation. It's a battle over Israel. And we are now experiencing the vehement vengeance of the devil who wants to destroy everything good that God has created. Now the question is once we know that this is a war in the heavens and a war on earth because it's already started in the heavens, when we know that this is a satanic war and satanic attacks, can we say, was Hamas inspired by Satan? We're on the air? Yes. Yes, I believe it. Is Satan involved with some of the various movements? Yes. Does everybody know who's marching that he is? No, but I believe he is. How do we deal with a Satanic movement to destroy the Jewish people and why would Satan want to do it? Jeremiah 31 verses 35 through 37, Glaser's paraphrase, if you can destroy the sun, the moon, and the stars, then I will destroy my people, Israel. If you can change the course of the oceans, you ever wonder why the ocean keeps to its boundaries? It's because God keeps the ocean in its boundaries. During Hurricane Sandy, we saw for one moment how the oceans can go past the boundary and what damage they could do. In a brief eclipse, we were reminded that usually that shouldn't happen because God keeps the moon away from the sun. But for one moment we saw it happen and it reminds us of God's plan, God's purpose, God's power. And so if we can destroy the plan and path and sovereign decisions of the Creator, then we can destroy the Jewish people. That's why the Abrahamic covenant where God promised the Jewish people, perpetual people, they would never be destroyed, a land that would be given to them as a grant. The deed was signed in Genesis 15 when the animals were split in part, it was signed in blood. And so I believe with all my heart that God has given these promises to the Jewish people. They cannot be broken. The devil doesn't know that, and the devil is trying to embarrass God and get in the way of God. If the devil can destroy the Jewish people, then he can prove God wrong. Therefore, what can believers do? What can you do? We can oppose anti-Semitism in the name of Yeshua.
Sid Roth: Why did one amazing chapter that Mitch read in the Jewish scriptures revolutionize his thinking about Jesus? Yes, you heard me right in the Jewish scriptures. Be right back.
Sid Roth: Why is knowledge of this chapter Isaiah chapter 53 so important for Jews, Gentiles and Christians?
Dr. Mitch Glaser: Sid and friends, Isaiah 53 was written 700 years before Jesus came to earth, and it is the most specific and most powerful Messianic prophecy in the Bible. There are wonderful Messianic prophecies in the Bible, but one of the reasons Isaiah 53 is so powerful is because it not only speaks of the death of the perfect servant of the Lord, but in verses 10 through the end of the chapter of 53, it speaks about the resurrection of the Lord. And so, Sid, if I was going to give one chapter to a friend to read, I would give them Isaiah 53.
Sid Roth: And by the way, I just said off there, I would go one step further. If I was to give one chapter in the new Covenant or the Jewish scriptures, it would be Isaiah 53.
Dr. Mitch Glaser: This is what happened, right? The day before my mother told me to leave the house after I had just come home and announced to her that I was a believer, okay? Two days later, she asked me to come back. Jewish guilt said it works every time. I asked my mom for one shot. She said, just one shot, but you can't use the New Testament and I don't want you to have any crosses in the house. I said, no problem, but the one shot. And so I sat down with her and took out Isaiah 53 because I was a very experienced believer and an apologist at that point. I was a believer for three months. And so I sat there with Isaiah...
Sid Roth: You sound like me, but go ahead.
Dr. Mitch Glaser: I read my mom Isaiah 53, and she said, no New Testament, right? I get to the end of Isaiah 53, she's half asleep. I wake her up. I said, mom, what do you think of this? She says, I told you not to read the New Testament. I said, mom, that's not the New Testament. That's our Bible. But it sounds like the New Testament because it's speaking about Jesus who's the center of the New Testament. My mom says, I don't care who it talks about, I don't want to hear it. You had your shot. And my mom kept her word for many years, probably over 40 years.
Sid Roth: Well, my father said something even more outrageous. When I finished reading it, he said, stop. You're reading from the New Testament. I said, dad, this is the Tanakh our Orthodox rabbi gave me. He didn't have a word. Oh yeah, he did have a word. You ready?
Dr. Mitch Glaser: But it was...
Sid Roth: You ready what the word was?
Dr. Mitch Glaser: I don't know if you can do it on air.
Sid Roth: I can do this on air.
Dr. Mitch Glaser: Okay.
Sid Roth: His word was he either had to say Jesus was the Jewish Messiah or what he said, the Rabbi gave that to you? I always thought there was something wrong with that Rabbi, I'm serious.
Dr. Mitch Glaser: Okay, so your dad shot the messenger, only it wasn't you, it was the rabbi. Good.
Sid Roth: Was better.
Dr. Mitch Glaser: I've seen many, many Jewish people come to faith through reading Isaiah 53. We've seen quite a few in Israel and around the globe, and it's a wonderful thing. But I had one Jewish lawyer in New York City gave me the best response. I preached on Isaiah 53 on Rosh Hashanah, which of course we always read Genesis 22, the Akedah. And so Abraham's almost sacrifice of Isaac is a perfect prototype of Jesus in his death and his resurrection. It's quoted as such in the Book of Hebrews. And so I preached on this and this elderly Jewish retired lawyer comes up to me and says, that was wonderful. I said, well, thank you. And I said, so you can see where Jesus fulfills Isaiah 53. And he says, yeah, yeah, I can. And then he looks at me and says, but so what? I had no idea what to say. In other words, he didn't believe the old and he didn't believe the new.
Sid Roth: Of course.
Dr. Mitch Glaser: The fact that they fulfilled one, it didn't matter. Isaiah 53 is a very powerful tool, but Sid, let's never forget the value and the power of prayer, of a good relationship with a Jewish person and the movement of the Holy Spirit. In John 16, we learned that it's the Holy Spirit that convicts of sin, righteousness, and judgment. And so we have to ask the Holy Spirit to move in the lives of Jewish people in order to be persuaded and convinced from the heart that Jesus is the Messiah.
Sid Roth: There are people watching right now, Jewish, Gentile and even church-going Christians that have never experienced intimacy with God, never experienced their own relationship with God, never experienced experiential knowledge. The thing that Mitch said, he began to know God, I want you to repeat this prayer out loud. "Dear God, I'm so sorry for my mistakes. I believe the blood of Messiah Jesus washed away every mistake. And I'm clean. And now that I'm clean, Jesus, come and live inside of me. I make you my Savior for my sins and my Lord. Amen". Mitch, there are many things you could pray for right now. I'm going to ask the Holy Spirit to have you pray for the viewers right now as God is directing you.
Dr. Mitch Glaser: Let's pray. Abba, and we do call you Abba because you are our loving Father, and we thank you for the relationship that you brought us into with yourself, because if it was up to us, we would've never found you. And we thank you for Jesus the Messiah. We thank you Lord for his love for us, his willingness to die for us and suffer for us. And we thank you for his powerful resurrection that crushes sin and death. Lord, we thank you, Father, for each and every person who's viewing the show today. I thank you for Sid. I thank you for the way you've worked in his life and for his vision. And Lord, I thank you for each and every person watching because I know that you have an individual plan for each life. And Lord, I pray that each and every person who's listening at this moment will discover that plan and will make you Lord of their lives and submit themselves to you. I also pray for those who are having struggles, Lord, whether it be health, whether it be relationships, whether it be in their own spiritual life where they're dealing with sin and even with disappointment. Lord, I pray that you would be there all in all, that you would meet them where they are. Lord, I pray that they would learn that they can trust you fully, that they could come to you and find rest for their souls. And then Lord, we also pray as one body. Lord, we pray, Father, for the peace of Jerusalem. We know in Psalm 126, you say, pray for the peace of Jerusalem. They will prosper who love thee. And Lord, we pray for the peace of Jerusalem. And Lord, while we pray for the peace of Jerusalem, we pray for the safety of Israel. We pray, Lord, that you would have the victory. Lord, we pray that you would crush the devil's intentions. We pray that everybody would see that the Jewish people are a witness even by their very existence to the reality of the one true God. And then, Lord, I pray for the hostages. Lord, I just can't imagine what they're going through and what their families are going through. Lord, we pray right now in the name of Jesus, your Messiah, your Son, our Savior. Lord, we pray that you would set the hostages free and Lord, that you continue to protect Israel and lead Israel on for the very purpose that you've called them, which is to be a faithful light unto the nations. And Lord, we pray all of this in the great name of Yeshua, our Mashiach. Amen.
Sid Roth: Pray for the peace for Jerusalem, thou shall prosper that love thee. Did you know that the word prosper in the Hebrew means something money can't buy? Did you know the word prosper in the Hebrew means heart peace. That's what this world is craving, heart peace. God says, if you agreed with the prayer Mitchell just prayed, he promises to give you heart peace. I say, shalom, shalom, pray for the peace of Jerusalem.