Sid Roth - The Truth About Palestine
Sid Roth: Hello. Welcome to my world where it's naturally supernatural. I can't wait for you to hear what is in my opinion the most important thing that will distinguish the false church from the real church in the last days, and I'll give you a clue in one word: Israel. Now my guest Sandy Teplinsky, like myself, was raised in an orthodox Jewish home. She went to an orthodox synagogue and when she got to college, she decided, I want to think a little for myself. She investigated different religions. Finally came, a New Testament came in her hand. Did you feel funny reading that, Sandy?
Sandy Teplinsky: Well I was brought up to believe it was the forbidden book. And actually, the only reason that I took one in my hands and read it was that I was attempting to disprove the Gospel.
Sid Roth: Well what happened? I know what happened.
Sandy Teplinsky: Well the interesting thing is that having read so many other religious books on my quest for God, that when I read the New Testament it conveyed a love and a life force, which we know is the Holy Spirit, that seemed to jump off the pages into my heart like nothing else that I had read. And it was also so Jewish a book. It was so Jewish, that as I flipped through the pages, I actually did much more than flipping, I studiously poured through them. I thought either this is the world's best kept secret, if this is what so-called Christianity is, or because I'm finding myself believing it and I'm finding it so consistent with the Old Testament, which we knew as the Hebrew Scriptures, that if I believe this I am really going to Hell. I'm doomed. It's one extreme or the other.
Sid Roth: So why did you proceed with such a repercussion potential?
Sandy Teplinsky: Because I became convinced it was true. And when you are convinced that God is God and that truth is truth, what can compare with that?
Sid Roth: You had no choice. Then Sandy goes on and she becomes an attorney. And I would like a Messianic Jewish attorney to tell me why your position on Israel is one of the major dividing lines of the true church and the false church. Take me to a couple of scriptures, Joel 3:2 and Zachariah.
Sandy Teplinsky: Joel 3:2 refers to something that takes place in the context of the End Times. God says that He is going to judge all the nations that have divided up His land. It's a very serious matter in God's eyes. And as we know, Israel has been divided up already many, many, many times, and there's, sadly the scriptures indicate even more to come.
Sid Roth: And Zachariah 12:3.
Sandy Teplinsky: Zachariah 12:3 talks about God gathering all nations to surround Jerusalem as if any military assault causing Jerusalem to be a burdensome stone to all nations. And yet, God says that He will cause those nations that surround Jerusalem to become burdened by their assault and God Himself is the one to retaliate and to release judgment on the nations.
Sid Roth: Because Israel is the apple of God's eye, I'm reminded of the Living Bible that says, "He that touches Israel is the same as someone that pokes their finger in God's eye". The devil is starting all sorts of teachings to get your eye off of God and off of the apple of His eye, Israel. There's something, Sandy, called fulfillment theology. It's a big word. What does it mean?
Sandy Teplinsky: Fulfillment theology is a theology that takes one precious scripture and exaggerates it, and builds a whole theology around it. Matthew 5:17, Jesus, Yeshua says that, "He has come to fulfill the Law and the prophets," which he has. Fulfillment theologians reinterpret the scriptures through that particular verse to mean that all of the promises that God has ever made are now completely fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ. Now this includes all of the prophetic promises and prophetic plans.
Sid Roth: How can they say that, because so many things haven't even happened yet.
Sandy Teplinsky: Well they're not reading the Bible.
Sid Roth: They're reading one verse.
Sandy Teplinsky: They're taking one verse out of context, but they're also not reading the whole Bible. They're neglecting the Hebrew Scriptures, which of course provide the foundation and the root of our understanding of the New Covenant scriptures. You can't completely understand in its fullness the New Covenant scriptures without an understanding of the Old Covenant scriptures.
Sid Roth: Well in addition to throwing out the Old Covenant, which you've got to be nuts over, because there's so much that hasn't happened yet in there, in addition to the moral law, in addition to everything about the return of Jesus that's there, many are throwing out the Book of Revelation. They say it's already happened. What do you say, Sandy?
Sandy Teplinsky: Well I'm thankful that it hasn't yet already happened.
Sid Roth: Me, too.
Sandy Teplinsky: Because I'm looking forward to the Lord's return. There are some people that believe that all of the prophecies pertaining to Israel or Israel's restoration have already been fulfilled. They say that they were fulfilled by the year 70 A.D., when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, but that is not the case. There are many, many prophecies that we cannot in any fair way say have already been fulfilled.
Sid Roth: They say it was fulfilled even though the Book of Revelation was written through John after the time they said it was fulfilled. So there are little, there's a Hebrew word, "meshuga", crazy. We'll be right back. And wait until you get a Hebrew understanding of covenant.
Sid Roth: So we're two nice Jewish people that were madly in love with the one who was said above his execution stake, "King of the Jews", Yeshua or Jesus. Now most believers do not understand the Hebraic understanding of covenant and in particular the covenant that God has with the Jewish people. Would you explain this a little, Sandy.
Sandy Teplinsky: In the scriptures, a covenant can be either conditional or unconditional. A conditional covenant is made between parties, each of whom has a legal responsibility or a responsibility before God to do certain things, to perform certain acts before that covenant can be fulfilled. In an unconditional covenant, not every party necessarily is committed to do certain things or perform certain acts before the covenant is fulfilled. In Abraham's day, the way the covenants were cut is that animals were literally slaughtered and cut. The pieces of their bodies were cut up and laid up on the ground and the covenanting parties would then walk in between the pieces. And in effect, they were saying, as has been done to these animals, it should be done unto me if I do not fulfill my covenant towards you.
Sid Roth: Covenants were really sacred.
Sandy Teplinsky: Very sacred. They had almost a life of their own, as they should still today. In the case of Abraham's covenant with God, God put Abraham into a spirit-induced sleep and then God himself as fire walked between those pieces. In doing so, God was stating as clearly as possible, He was executing a spiritual reality that His covenant with Abraham was dependent only upon the actions of God Himself alone on the character, on the mercy and grace of God. And God affirms that covenant with Abraham later on in the scriptures and then specifically He states that Isaac, and not Ishmael inherits it. Although Ismael is blessed, he doesn't inherit the Abraham covenant.
Sid Roth: The blessing for Ismael, the head of the Arabs, but not the land. Go ahead.
Sandy Teplinsky: Not the land. And then God goes on to say that his covenant will be inherited specifically to Jacob and specifically not by Esau. And then that covenant is reaffirmed throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, Psalm 105, which speaks about the covenant lasting forever, a thousand generations and including the land. And then it's been reaffirmed in the New Covenant that sometimes people don't notice.
Sid Roth: Give me in the example in the New Covenant.
Sandy Teplinsky: Well perfect example is Romans 9 through 11. In Romans 9 through 11, the Apostle Paul repeats over and over again, not just once, not just twice, but several times he repeats that God's covenants and promises to Israel are still Israel's. Romans, Chapter 9, he says that the covenants and promises are still Israel's. He uses the word "is". The promise IS still Israel's. And in Greek, "is" means what it means in English. It's a present ongoing tense. It still is. In Romans, Chapter 11, Paul writes, Verse 1, "Had God rejected His people? No God forbid," he says. "God has not rejected His people". Later on in the same chapter, he goes on to say that the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable.
Sid Roth: If you were an attorney, would you like to take God's case that this is an unconditional and not a conditional covenant and based on the Land of Israel?
Sandy Teplinsky: I think it's a pretty good case.
Sid Roth: I do, too. How about you audience, would you like to hear God's case? Look, God in you, a majority. Okay. Sandy, tell me about, I heard this by a wise man once, who's now in Heaven. He says, "God uses Israel to judge the nations, but He judges Israel for sin Himself". I guess it's founded in Genesis 12:3. Explain that.
Sandy Teplinsky: Genesis 12:3 is the covenant that God makes with Abraham before he has this procedure with the animals in which He tells Abraham to leave his father's land, go to a land that God will show him and through that Abraham, all families of the earth will be blessed. And then God goes on to say that those that bless you I will bless, that those that curse you, I will curse.
Sid Roth: How about Matthew 25:40.
Sandy Teplinsky: Matthew 25:40 is key and it's critical to the days that we're in. Those that fed Israel, those that visited the Jewish people in prison, those that gave a cup of cold water to the Jewish people, Jesus says, "As you have done to the least of these brothers of mine, you've done it to me". How a people treats the Jewish people reflects how that people would treat Jesus himself.
Sid Roth: Okay. Genesis 12:3, Matthew 25:40, all says you have a choice. Your nation can be a goat nation, a goat has a mind of its own, or a sheep nation, a sheep follows the shepherd. And you as an individual, you can either bless the nation Israel with the Jewish people and be blessed by God, according to Genesis 12:3, or you can curse the Jewish people and the nation Israel and be flattened by God. Be right back.
Sid Roth: So in the last segment we were talking about Genesis 12:3, "I God will bless those who bless the Jewish people". I mean, I'm kind of a black and white truth-type person. This is God speaking. I, God, will bless those who bless the Jewish people. "I, God, will curse those who curse the Jewish people". Sandy, tell me some historical examples of this.
Sandy Teplinsky: Well first we have Bible history that I won't go into. But immediately after God puts this blessing and cursing associated with Abraham on to the patriarch, we see that he encounters Abimelech, King Abimelech, who first mistreats him in his wife and then blesses him in his wife, and so he and his household suffer the consequences. But then going, fast forward going into post-biblical history, we see how the Roman Empire thrived until it enacted virulently anti-Jewish laws, persecuted the Jewish people, the Roman Empire crumbled. We can look at the Crusades, the Crusades that were initiated by England and France, dispatching popes into the Promised Land to liberate Jerusalem. But unfortunately liberate meant liquidate and so multitudes of innocent Jews, as well as Muslims were slaughtered in the Crusades. Shortly thereafter, England and France turned their weapons against each other in the 100-years war, and much of their population was decimated by the bubonic plague. We can go on to the Spanish Inquisition and we can see how Spain was experiencing golden age in which it was a global economic power. Once it began its inquisitions, which meant either forced conversions of Jews to Christianity, which in nearly every case meant a fake conversion or expulsion from the country, the Spanish Empire crumbled. And then we can look at the British Empire, which it had been said that the sun never sets on the British Empire. Great Britain played a critical role in the formation of the State of Israel and sadly, although Great Britain did bring blessing to Israel, there were instances of some real deeds that were far less than blessing and so we see that the British Empire is no more. And we can even look at the former Soviet Union, which notoriously persecuted the Jewish people and eventually crumbled.
Sid Roth: Palestinian, we hear this word. Where did it come from?
Sandy Teplinsky: The word "palestinian" actually came from the Romans. When they conquered Jerusalem, the renamed the region Palestine in mocking remembrance of Israel's ancient and by then long extinct enemy, the Philistines.
Sid Roth: So I wonder if they realize they're named after the Philistines and that was a derogatory thing that was done. But what I understand is when they got the name "Palestine", that was the name for Jews and Arabs, not just for the Arabs.
Sandy Teplinsky: Right. That whole region was called Palestine until it was, until shortly after World War I, when it was the nation's and through international treaties, divided it up into different Arab states and a Jewish state that was to include all of what was then known as Palestine.
Sid Roth: Okay. What is the history of these Palestinian people? What are their rights to that Land of Israel?
Sandy Teplinsky: The majority of Palestinians were Bedouin, who simply wandered all over the Middle East in search of subsistence. They were tribal people. They did not stay long in one particular locale. The Middle East was known as the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years. Up until World War I, it was the Ottoman Empire and the Arabic peoples kind of wandered all over the place. Yes, some did stake out certain areas, but most of them did not. The people that are known as Palestinians today, approximately a third of them have in some type of indigenous trace, not ancestral, okay, but indigenous in the sense that their parents or grandparents lived in that general area for at least a couple of generations. But most of them, about two-thirds of them came from surrounding regions in the larger Middle East, the Ottoman Empire, the former Ottoman Empire, came from surrounding regions to what is now known as the State of Israel, only after the Zionist pioneers arrived and started to reclaim the land and build it up. What we know as the State of Israel today was mostly desert and swamp land up until then.
Sid Roth: I remember a description by Mark Twain. When he saw he said, "Who in the world would want this land"? But it's as if when the Jewish people returned to the Land of Israel the desert blossomed as a rose, and so then they won it. Well let's fast forward a little bit. You maintain that the media is, what was the word that you used, it was not Hollywood, it was...
Sandy Teplinsky: Pallywood.
Sid Roth: Pallywood, explain that.
Sandy Teplinsky: Pallywood is a term that's been coined to reflect that much of what we see in the, not only mainstream media, but even social media. Even that's a mainstream media these days, that depicts scenes of conflict between Palestinians and Israelis are fake scenes. Sad to say, but there's been pretty extensive documentation, not hard to find.
Sid Roth: Tell me one example.
Sandy Teplinsky: Okay. Well an interesting example took place during Israel's last war with Gaza, the end of 2012, when the Palestinians scripted fake scenes of assault and injury, one of which included a scene of a seemingly innocent Gazan who appeared to be severely injured in a, near an attack scene with his comrades helping him and trying to summon aid. And the whole scene is really heart-rendering. Anybody with any sense of compassion or justice would be moved by it except for the end of it, during which the injured victim stands up, brushes himself off and walks away with his comrades.
Sid Roth: Well is it true that the terrorists have hospitals and schools filled with sick people and children, and they put the rockets that they're flying into Israel there, so when Israel tries to get rid of the rockets, they kill innocent men and children.
Sandy Teplinsky: The militant Muslims, the Islamists intentionally maximize civilian damage in large part to gain sympathy for their cause against Israel. Among themselves, they will laud such victims as martyrs and honor them in Arabic, and then to the west, in English they will lament and wail about the so-called brutality of the Israelis.
Sid Roth: Has Israel really warned them before they attack?
Sandy Teplinsky: Absolutely. The Israeli army, unlike any other nation that I'm aware of in the world, before a planned assault, will drop leaflets, will radio a warning, will call cell phones. Every cell phone in the region will get a text saying, "We're going to attack now".
Sid Roth: My goodness. I'll tell you, Esther has a tie to the End Time Church. And Mordecai said to Esther, "Esther Church, if you don't stand up for the Jewish people in Israel at this time, God will raise deliverance from another source". But Esther, who knows if you've not been called to the Kingdom for such a time as this.