SID: Hello. Sid Roth here. Welcome to my world where it’s naturally supernatural. I believe the greatest sign of the soon return of Jesus, besides Jerusalem in Jewish possession, we have evidence of on this show. I believe that when you see large numbers of Jewish people turning to Jesus, well Jesus himself said, “I will not return until the Jewish people say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,’” you are going to see evidence that this is happening the United States of America. My guest, Dr. Michael Brown, is one of the men in a book that God directed me to write. He said more Jewish people would come to know him through this book than anything I had ever done. And over 850,000 of these books are in print today. It’s called “They Thought For Themselves”. It’s a simple book, ten testimonies of Jewish people that have come to know Jesus. One of those testimonies is my friend, Dr. Michael Brown. It’s hard to believe looking at you, Mike, that your nickname used to be “Drug Bear”. What was your life like?
MICHAEL: Well I grew up in a conservative Jewish home, born in New York City, raised in Long Island. My dad was a senior lawyer in the New York Supreme Court. Everything defined my upbringing. I was playing drums and I got caught up in the whole rock music counter culture scene. So by the late 60’s, drugs was interesting to me. I started getting high at the age of 14 and I got into it. I kind of took the plunge. I was shooting heroin at the age of 15. I actually stole from my father. I broke into houses, broke into doctors’ office just for fun to steal drugs. They use to call me Drug Bear and Iron Man, probably the most abusive drug user in my high school. And at the of 16 and a half, two of my best friends had come to faith, gentile friends. They believed Jesus was the Savior. I went to a church to pull them out and got confronted with God’s love and goodness., and the reality that Jesus was our Messiah. And I got radically turned around. At 16 and a half, December 17th of ’71, I said, “God I will never put a needle in my arm again.” And that was it. I was transformed.
SID: Okay. What happens after you’re on fire for God and you come home, and you say, “Mom, Dad, I’m off of drugs! I believe in Jesus!” Well first my dad said, “Halleluiah!” He was making fun of me. “Oh yeah, great, really.” But they were so concerned about my drug use. I mean, I lied to them. I told them it wasn’t quite that bad. But they found out I was shooting drugs and things. So they were, “Wow! What happened? Are you serious? You’re not doing drugs. You’re not high. You’re talking normally. You’re looking normal. You’re not hanging out with certain people. You’re looking differently.” So they were thrilled, but there’s a problem. You’re a Jew, not a Christian.
SID: Okay so the trot you out to the rabbi. What does the rabbi say to you?
MICHAEL: “You know, you’re a nice man, you’re sincere but you’re misled.” He said, “Look you’re a very spiritual person, but you are wrong.” He sat me down to talk and he challenged me. He said, “You don’t even know Hebrew.” And I said, “Yeah, but I’ve met Jesus. My life has changed.” And I was reading the King James in English and I’m memorizing these verses, and I can look up things that are in concordance and find out what the Hebrew says. And the guy said to me, “It’s meaningless. If you don’t know the Hebrew it’s meaningless.” So he brings me to other rabbis in Brooklyn, and these guys, long beards, black coats, ultra Orthodox Jews. Very nice. And they take out their Hebrew Bibles and they’re pointing at it. I don’t remember how to read the words. I mean, I learned a little Hebrew to get Bar Mitzvahed.
SID: I understand. I was where you are.
MICHAEL: It’s intimidating. They’re nice guys. They’re very devoted. They pray. They seem to be very moral characters and caring. And they’re telling me, “Look, look, that’s not what the Hebrew says. These English translations are terrible.” And I thought, I got to find out. I know that God changed my life. I know Jesus is real. I mean, as surely as I know that I’m alive. But they’ve got serious questions. If what I’m following is true it can withstand the test. If what I’m following is true then the most rigorous answers from those educated rabbis will have answers. Otherwise, I got to question this whole thing. So I started college. I started learning Hebrew there.
SID: But bottom line, how many languages and dialects have you studied?
MICHAEL: 15-plus.
SID: And you have your Ph.D. from New York University.
MICHAEL: In Near Eastern languages and literature.
SID: Okay. So no one can say you don’t Hebrew.
MICHAEL: No.
SID: As a matter of fact, you have memorized a great deal of the Jewish Scriptures in Hebrew.
MICHAEL: Yes, it’s wonderful. It’s beautiful. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I just say, [Hebrew]. “To do your will, O God, I delight,” quoted from the Psalms. And here’s what’s amazing, Sid. Okay, I want to learn Hebrew. I need to learn some of the related languages so I can get the culture and the context. You know, I want to even rely on what commentary said. I’ve been able to write commentaries myself now. I want to be able to dig and study myself. I don’t want to have to listen what the rabbis say, the Christian scholars. I want to dig for myself. And what’s fascinating is the more I dug, the more excited I became.
SID: How many years has this been?
MICHAEL: Well it’s 37-plus years.
SID: With your mind and the way you, between you and me, have you found anything that would cause you to believe Jesus is not the Messiah after all of the years, all of this study? I mean, you’ve worked on commentaries. You’ve memorized so much of the Jewish Scriptures. Is there anything that causes you to doubt Jesus is the Messiah?
MICHAEL: Oh no, to the contrary. Seriously, with no hype here, Sid, the more I studied, the more solid I realized our foundations were. I mean, the discoveries when you see the New Testament authors quoting from the Hebrew Scriptures and the insights they had, when you dig deeper and discover things you didn’t see before. And I went in saying, I got on my face, I prayed as a young man, and I said, “God, if Jesus is not the Messiah then I will not follow him. I don’t care what I lose, I’m gonna honor you. But if he is the Messiah, I don’t care what my Jewish people think about me. I’m gonna follow him and I’m gonna honor You.” And Sid, honestly, I read 1500 pages of books on answering Jewish objections to Jesus, air tight, definite, clear. He is the Messiah, no doubt, no question. And if people really see God they’ll find out for themselves.
SID: Look in the camera and give me one scripture in Hebrew and English why Jesus is the Messiah.
MICHAEL: Surely. At the end of Isaiah 52: [Hebrew]. What does it say? “Behold my servant will act wisely. He’ll be absolved and lifted up and very high.” And then it says, “Just as many were appalled…” and it begins to speak of his suffering. Sid, it paints the picture of one who would be high exalted so kings will shut their mouths because of him. But first, he’ll suffer terrible disfigurement. As the chapter goes on in 53 it says, “His own people in Israel will reject him and misunderstand him, think that he was dying for his own sins only to realize,” [Hebrew], “at the cost of his wounds there’s healing for us.” It’s an amazing picture.
SID: It’s an amazing time we’re living in. Be right back after this word.
