Debunking the “Paul False Apostle” Viral Video

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Well, hello folks. Welcome to today's episode of the Rise Radio podcast. And we're just going to get straight into it, really, because wow, there's been a a YouTube video that's gone viral in the last few days, and and it's this lady who's talking about well, the video is called Why Paul is a false apostle. And one of the things she says in the video is Paul is the false apostle that Jesus mentioned in the book of Revelation. I assume, I assume she probably means by that that she's saying that Paul is the false prophet from the book of Revelation, but it's just unbelievable some of the content that goes viral these days. And we thought we should address this and to talk about the Hebrew Roots movement as a whole, because I know that this is part and parcel with some of the Torah-only Hebrew Roots movement. I've seen in the past uh people saying similar stuff to this. So we thought we'd talk about the movement as a whole today with James, who came on a few weeks ago about the Seventh-day Adventist cult uh before. So, James, welcome to the show. And maybe if we just start this discussion, if you could just give us a brief overview of what is the Hebrew Roots movement.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Well, thank you for having me again, brother. It's uh always good to speak with you. I consider it a blessing to be invited uh to speak with you. So, yeah, um broadly speaking, a lot like uh Christianity, there are different uh movements, different branches, but essentially the message of the Torah only, the Hebrew roots movement is that we must keep all of the feasts, we must eat kosher, we must be circumcised, we must keep Sabbath, we have to keep the law of Moses and not doing any of the above. Again, this is a broad this is where they all come together and they they have the same core beliefs that if we don't keep the law of Moses, keep Sabbath, be circumcised, eat kosher, keep all the feasts, that it is lawlessness and sin not to do so. So that's broadly speaking, that's that's what they all unite on, those those basic fundamental beliefs that they that they hold to.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

I sent you this video before we did the interview today, and I mean it's got a hundred thousand views within a few days. It's really you know caused a lot of controversy, understandably, because it's obviously heretical uh claims to make. And we do pray for this woman. We don't know who she is, but what do you make of this video?

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Well, I'll I'll be honest with you. I I saw it for about five minutes and I had to turn it off. But then I then I actually gave it an honest uh view a couple times I went through it, but it broke my heart. You know, anybody who throw, and this is another this is ultimately what has to happen if we're gonna adhere to all of the previous uh doctrine that I mentioned, keeping the law of Moses, keeping all the feasts, and if you don't, then it's lawlessness. When you read, like he wrote most of our New Testament, you know, and so if you throw Paul out, then what do you have? I mean, Paul was an apostle ordained by Jesus Christ. So when I watched uh her speak, it it broke my heart. I felt terrible for her. She is not in Christ, and if anybody throws Paul out, you're throwing Jesus out, and that's just the way it is.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

Yeah, because one of the things that strikes me about it is that do you think that Paul is often attacked in that movement because he is so blatantly against the false teaching that they believe, such as in the book of Galatians, is just such a clear refutation of the Torah-only movement, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Yes, I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain. We see in Galatians 4, 21 to 31, the two sons, the two covenants. One will be heir and one will not be heir. I mean, it's so crystal clear, as you mentioned. It's the kryptonite to these false movements, the Torah-only movements, the law-keeping movements. Paul annihilated that doctrine, you know. We're New Testament Christians.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And the STA as well comes to mind. Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

Yeah. The way to protect ourselves from these movements is to know the story of the Bible. So here's here's one of the things that helps me. Now, everybody has different styles in their um way of defending the truth, uh, there in their apologetics. Mine is to, here's a couple examples I'll use. Israel, the nation of Israel, the 12 tribes, they were to be a light unto the Gentiles. They refused to be a light unto the Gentiles, they worship false gods. God made them wander in the desert. Okay, for every day they didn't take the land, they were given one year in the desert. This is God's firstborn, the nation of Israel. So for every day they didn't take the land, they were given a year in the desert, and they wandered for 40 years. Now, this is very important to understand. Moses was not able to enter the promised land. It was Joshua, Yeshua, a type of Jesus, who took God's people into the promised land. So this is very good to understand that. In our New Testament, we see that Jesus, he's led into the desert for 40 days, and he is God's true firstborn Israel, and in 40 days accomplishes what the nation of Israel failed to do, and he accomplished it in the desert in 40 days. He is true Israel. So understanding that helps us so that we can defend ourselves when people tell us that we have to go back under the old law. Another really important thing is, for example, the book of John. John is a new creation account. So if you if you go to John, you can see that in John 1, you'll see that there is a day, verse 29, the next day, John 1.35 the next day. So that makes day three. John 1.43 the following day, that makes day four. Then you come down here into John 2, and you see on the third day. So four plus three is seven days. When we read John 1, we see the deity of Christ, and it takes us back to Genesis 1, Colossians 1, Philippians 2. We see this new creation, this new exodus. Okay. On the seventh day, which is technically the eighth day, a wedding is had, Jesus is at the wedding, the earthly bridegroom runs out of wine, which is a major disaster. Now, this is so important to understand this. If if if I was talking to a Hebrew roots person, this is what I would talk to them about. I would say, let's look at John. As you read in the book of John, you see in John 2, verse 6, there were six water pots of stone according to the manner of purification of the Jews. Okay. And Jesus takes that water that could only cleanse the outside, symbolic of the old covenant, and he changes that water into wine, showing us his new covenant. The earthly bride ran out of wine, and Jesus supplied the wine. He is the heavenly bridegroom. This is a picture of him ushering in the new covenant.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Wow. I've never heard of that. Isn't that beautiful?

SPEAKER_00 8:46

Yeah, isn't that beautiful, brother? So then what we see is in the book of John, we see him take people through a wilderness. He supplies manna from heaven, he crosses the water, all of the same picture. It's the new Exodus. Moses's first miracle was turning water into blood. That's the symbol of God's wrath. Because again, Israel was cursed because they did not keep the law. We can clearly see this in the book of Acts. Why put a burden on the neck of the people that our fathers could not keep? I'm paraphrasing. But as you go and you look in the book of John, you see a new exodus. The people want the bread from heaven, the manna that Jesus supplies, but then they grumble and complain. The same thing we see in the book of Numbers, and they turn away. It's all this new Exodus story. So if we can teach our Hebrew roots friends to actually interpret the Bible correctly, I think that would be really helpful for them to come out of these false teachings.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

That is very deep. That is incredible. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. Welcome. Why do you think that some in this group end up claiming that Jesus isn't God? They actually start to deny the deity of Christ.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

Ah, David. And this is again ultimately there's two powers, there's two forces at work. There's good and evil, there's dark and light, okay? There's Christ and there's the enemy. This is all the doctrine of demons. Okay. We can see this stuff clearly uh uh stated in scripture. When you start throwing Paul out, pretty soon you're denying the triune Godhead. Another very common thing in these in this movement is denying the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

So you end up with a different Jesus, don't you?

SPEAKER_00 10:37

Yes, a false Christ. That's the devil's game, right? That that's what he does. He comes as an angel of light, and it's no wonder even his ministers transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose ends will be according to their works. We see that in the scripture, yes.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

There's nothing in the New Testament that actually teaches that you need to change your culture in terms of become more Hebrew in the way you dress or the festivals you keep in order to please God as a Gentile. There's nothing that says that, is there? In fact, the opposite.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

Exactly. You know, hey, if I if I'm of Jewish descent and I I want to uh try my best to attempt to keep some of the things and even wear the clothing. And again, I'm I know the names of the little hats and the little teeth seats and all the things they wear and do. I I if I was Jewish, I might keep Sabbath. But we rest in Jesus Christ. He said, Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, I will give you rest. So, you know, there's nothing wrong with uh practicing your heritage. If I was Japanese, there's certain tradition that I can hold to. But we are new covenant Christians. We're under a new covenant, right? So if we look in the book of Ephesians 11 to 22, we see the circumcision and the uncircumcision. The middle wall of separation has been uh destroyed. The curtain in the temple was read from top to bottom when Christ was on the cross, and he's made both uh Jew and Greek, you know, the message was first to the Jew and then to the Greek. He's made both into one body, one shepherd, one baptism, one Lord.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

Yeah, because again, Paul makes it clear in the book of Colossians, doesn't he? That it's crystal clear. It's not about the uh Sabbaths and holy days, we're not to judge each other based on those things. You know, if you're Canadian, it's fine that you're Canadian. You don't have to become like a pseudo-israeli to to um be more acceptable to God. Uh and also you don't need to speak Hebrew, well, because the other thing is the sacred name uh stuff, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Oh, yeah, yeah. Then we get into that whole thing, you know, and and that's that's too right. There's one name in which we are saved. We see this in the book of Acts, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. It, you know, at the end of the day, if I'm saying that I'm keeping God's law, uh keeping it perfectly, and I'm saying Yeshua and and Yah, and I'm using all these Yahuwah, all these different names, but I'm misrepresenting who that is. That's a false Christ. God knows when we call on God and we we pray to him, he knows who we're talking to from our heart, you know. It's like it's there's a couple examples. So say you had a son and his name was Tim. And I was down at the coffee shop and somebody walked up to me and said, Oh, I, you know, I saw Tim the other day. And I said, Oh, yeah, I know Tim. Yeah, he was outside of the club, he was bouncing, and he he was really hard on one of the guys who was a little bit intoxicated, and he bounced him off. And I'm thinking hearing this, and I go, Whoa, whoa, whoa, hey, that's a different Tim. Uh, you're talking about somebody else. He's using the same name, but he's describing a completely different person, right? So that's one clunky example. Another thing I like to visualize is if I have a family member and they've been gone on a long trip, I love them. I can't wait for them to come home. I know I have to go to the airport in a week to pick them up, and I start gazing at their picture, and I'm saying, Oh, I can't wait till they get back. I know I have only a few more days to count down until I go get them from the airport. And I'm gazing at their picture. I the day comes when they arrive and I drive to the airport. They're coming down the stairs of the plane on the tarmac. It's a bright sunny day, and I run and I start to kiss their shadow. Wouldn't that be a little bit insane? Kissing their shadow, right? And then I drive them home and we get home and they're sitting on the couch, and I'm gazing into the picture, but they're sitting right there beside me, right? The law was a shadow according to the book of Hebrews, Hebrews 10, Hebrews 8, so many places. We're not antinomian, which means against the law, pronomian. We love God's law, but it's the law of Christ that we are under, you know. Uh, there's a passage, I'll read it quickly. It's a messianic passage in the book of Isaiah. Let me quickly quote it, really quick. I think it's Isaiah 42. And it's again, it's a messianic prophecy. I'll read it a couple verses for you. It says, Behold my servant who I uphold. This is Isaiah 42, my elect one in whom my soul delights. I have put my spirit upon him. Now remember, if you're denying the Trinity, Jesus said, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. The spirit, the Holy Spirit of the Lord the Father is upon me, the Son. So we're gonna keep reading Isaiah 42. I have put my spirit upon him, he will bring forth justice to the Gentiles. He will not cry out nor raise his voice, nor cough. Isaiah 42, verse 3. A bruised reed he will not break, and smoking flax he will not quench. He will bring forth justice for truth, he will not fail nor be discouraged, till he has established justice in the earth, and the coastlands will wait for his law. This is the Messiah's law, Galatians 2. Okay, bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

Yeah, so do you think it's not being rightly divided when it comes to these scriptures?

SPEAKER_00 16:34

Absolutely. They don't know their Bible. Remember what we talked about, knowing our Old Testament, all of the prophecies about the Messiah to come, indicate to us, I will bring you a new covenant, we see in the book of Jeremiah 31, right? So taking people who are biblically illiterate, you can twist the Bible pretty much to say anything you want it to say, but that's called eisegesis. We must exegete and have proper hermeneutics when we study our scripture.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

In 2 Peter, it says uh that, doesn't it, that there are some things that Paul has written which are hard to understand, which uh unstable people twist their own destruction.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

Yeah, even Peter, Paul had to rebuke him. It was hard for Peter when he saw that vision in Acts 10. All things are cleansed, God said to Peter. And I'm paraphrasing again, but you know the vision he had. And so it was hard for Peter. And in the book of Galatians, we see I rebuked him to his face. When he was around Jews, he, you know, he was trying to, but when the Gentiles were around him, he tried to uh uh uh not eat with them because he was too concerned about what his uh fellow Jewish brothers would would think of him.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

And that's a very good point. I was gonna go on to that as well, actually. The the uh vision that Peter had uh about clean and unclean meat. Yes. So that's another thing that goes into, isn't it? Uh this this type of teaching that there's some meat that you shouldn't eat.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

Yeah, that's right. Another big thing for them is again, there's one gentleman who has a fairly large, uh, a pretty good presence in that movement. I won't I don't want to promote him, but what he does is he sets up a table. Who they're trying to evangelize, this is another way we'll know if it's from God or not. These sex always the target audience is not people who don't know Jesus, it's people who are already in Christ that they try to grab and bring them back under the old covenant law. And so this guy sets up a booth and he'll say the first question he'll ask people is, Do you eat pork? Do you keep God's law? Right. And it's just so sad to see that because the pride is just boiling over in this young man. And he thinks he's doing God's work, but he is a Judaizer. He's trying to pull people back under the old covenant. And the old covenant will actually bring condemnation. No one can keep uh God's law. There was only one who kept it. And once again, uh God said to Israel, if you keep these things that I'm telling you to keep, you'll be blessed. But if you do not, you will be cursed. And they were cursed, and this is a fact. Um, in the book of Hebrews, in Hebrews 10, verse 28, it says, Anyone who has rejected Moses' law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses, of how much more worse punishment do you suppose will be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot and counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, a common thing, and insulted the spirit of grace. The new covenant, Jesus said, This is the blood of the new covenant. This is my blood of the new covenant.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

Yeah, I'm gonna read uh these verses as well from 1 Timothy chapter 4. Yeah, I'm sure just at the beginning, it says, warnings against false teachers, and this is this says it all really, uh, in terms of this. It says, Now the spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. Then it says, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving, for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. So there we go. I love that direct reference there.

SPEAKER_00 20:48

Amen. You know what's interesting too, because in that same book, a little bit earlier, we see in 1 Timothy 2, I think it's uh verse 12, and I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence. Now, a lot of people twist that in evangelical uh system. You know, you're Baptists and and uh all of us uh you know Protestants. Unfortunately, people will twist those verses and try to lord over women, but it's clear too that these movements often it's women that are actually doing the leading out. And I find that very fascinating. In the book of Genesis, Adam heeds the voice of his wife, okay? And the the fall happens. He was responsible for tending the garden and he fell when Eve uh was deceived. Adam was not deceived, we see in the book of Timothy. Uh, God has an order of things: the father, the son, the man, the woman, and and the family, and so on and so forth.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

It's also interesting in 2 Peter chapter 2, verse 1, it says something similar about the false teachers. It says, But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you. Who privilege shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them and bring upon themselves swift swift destruction. So, yeah, like we said, it it leads to denying the Lord Himself, because uh as we said before, in the end, people start to choose a different Jesus and one who is not God in the flesh, and so on and so forth.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

That's right, that's right. Another uh big one they get hung up on, and I brought this up uh the last time we spoke, but it's so important also to understand in the book of Matthew, we see Jesus shows up on a mountain. So if we have Old Testament eyes, which is so important, if we have Old Testament eyes, when we see Jesus coming here and Matthew 5, standing on a mountain, that should perk up our interest. He goes on to say, You have heard it said. And then he quotes the law, but he says, But I say to you, okay? So he gives us his law and several commandments, several. And most of these people in these movements, they have no clue what this actually teaches. They get stuck on Matthew 5, 17 and 18 down in there. But if you properly interpret it, Jesus says, Do not think that I came to destroy the law of the prophets. I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill. In Luke 24, 44 to 49, he said, the law, the psalms, and the prophets were all about me. In John 5, he said, Moses wrote about me. So he filled it full. For assuredly I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. And then he goes on to say, Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, don't run back to Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, but keep reading, okay? Whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever doesn't teach them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. So those verses have to be rightly divided. He goes on to give us his commandments. So if you read Matthew 5, 6, 7, and into 8, you'll see all of his commandments. Go the second mile. Marriage is sacred and binding. You know, he teaches us how to pray. He says, do not worry, do not judge. He gives us several commandments. But it's also important to understand that it's only Christ's righteousness that exceeds. He's not telling us to strive to be as righteous as anyone. He's teaching us that we must be clothed in his righteousness. When Adam and Eve fell in the garden, the first thing they did was they did their best work by covering themselves with fig leaves, attempting to reconcile themselves with the Father. And that was not sufficient. He had to clothe them in tunics of skin. Blood was shed and life given to cover them.

SPEAKER_01 25:07

Yeah, and that's also the first act of God's grace towards Adam and Eve that you see very clearly there in the Garden of Eden, isn't it? Is that He has to cover us with His sacrifice, just like they were covered with skins, the animal sacrifice. And it has to be by His grace and through belief and faith in His gospel, because it reminded me as well in John 8, where Jesus said, For if you do not believe that I am He, you will be with a capital H with a capital H you'll die in the sins. So you have to believe in the God man Jesus Christ. You know, the He there is capitalized. I am He. Yes, yes. You can't go to another Jesus that is not God, fully God and fully man. No one else, a mere man alone, could not uh pay the price for sin.

SPEAKER_00 26:02

That's right, brother. You know, there's a pride that I see in these movements. There's a again, it's an unknowing, it's a biblical biblical illiteracy looking like the wisdom, but it's not wisdom. It's it's biblical illiteracy. In Mark 2, verse 22, we see no one puts new wine into old wineskins, or else the new wine bursts the wineskins. The wine is spilled and the wineskins are ruined, but new wine must be put into new wineskins. Again, indicative of the new covenant. We see later on in the same book of Mark, in Mark 7, Jesus teaches it's not what goes into a man, right? There is nothing that enters a man from the outside which can defile him, but the things which come out of him, those are the things which defile a man.

SPEAKER_01 26:52

And just like the, I suppose the Pharisees, the Pharisaic religiosity is all about the external things, isn't it? And um not about the heart. Like Jesus said, you have to clean the inside first up before you clean the outside. And that's right, brother. The verse in Colossians 2 23 that says the such restrictions as these, they have an it they indeed have an appearance of wisdom with their self-prescribed worship, their false humility, and their harsh treatment of the body, but they are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

That's right, brother. Yeah, yeah, that's right. So let no one judge you in food or drink regarding a festival or a new moon sabbaths, which are a shadow of the things to come, right? I love that in Colossians. We see in Hebrews 7, verse 12, it says, For the priesthood being changed of necessity, there is also a change of the law. So when people say that they keep the feasts and do all that stuff, that's actually not possible without a temple, right? We are the temple of God now, you and I. We're filled with his Holy Spirit. But again, we have to understand the scripture and read it in context. Uh later in Hebrews 7, verse 18, it says, For on the one hand, there is an annulling of the former commandment because of its weakness and unprofitableness, for the law made nothing perfect. On the other hand, there is a bringing in of a better hope through which we draw near to God. Hebrews 8:13, he says, A new covenant. He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. Hebrews 10:1, for the law having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices which they offer continually, year by year, make those who approach perfect. The law was a shadow pointing us to Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_01 29:01

Yeah, because the law was a schoolmaster, wasn't it? It points out the disease that we need the hope of the gospel for. That's the role that the law plays in that uh dynamic, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 29:14

That's right, rather. Another beautiful picture I like to tell my Torah friends, my Hebrew roots friends, is I'll ask them, tell me about the Ark of the Covenant, and I'll ask them to describe it to me. What was it? Well, you know, the Ten Commandments sat in the Ark of the Covenant, uh, there was the cherubim and and the presence of God sat. I said, What sat over the law? The mercy seat. And the book of James says mercy triumphs over judgment, right? So it's all about God's mercy. Yeah. Thank God for that.

SPEAKER_01 29:48

Because without that, we'd be lost.

SPEAKER_00 29:51

Amen, brother. Amen. Running back under the old covenant is running away from Jesus. We are under the new covenant, not like the one he made with uh the fathers, he says in the scripture.

SPEAKER_01 30:06

Brilliant. Thank you so much for all the answers to that and the discussion. We had a really interesting talk with you there. And could you just say a prayer for those who are caught in this movement? That would be really absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

Yes. Heavenly Father, crush our hearts, humble us, Lord. When we're pointing our finger at somebody saying, Do you eat pork? Do you keep the law? That in itself is a very big indication that there's something wrong. We should have broken hearts, we should love one another, bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. This is all about Jesus. He knows his name, he knows who we're speaking to. And so, Lord God, please direct us, fill us with your Holy Spirit, draw us to yourself. Help us as Christians not be too judgmental with our Hebrew roots, friends, but to love on them, to show them the scriptures, to converse with them, to have meals with them, and to show them the love of you, the reflection of you that lives inside of us, Lord. Please, God, give us opportunity to minister to our brothers and sisters out there so that they can come into the fullness of truth, because you are the way, the truth, and the life. And you're the only way to the Father. It's through the Son. So we pray this in Jesus' holy name. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 31:34

Amen. Thank you, James. You're welcome, brother. We'll include your website in the show notes below the podcast. It's for the Into the Light Ministries, which you're doing. Really, really good stuff. If you're listening to this podcast today, please do go and check out uh the website for James's outreach there, which you're doing in Canada with others as well, aren't you, James? Going to speak to people on the streets, are you, and uh help around your local community?

SPEAKER_00 32:02

Yeah, there's a couple guys. I'm a chaplain and I'm a street pastor. Uh, I was working for a very large nonprofit called the mustard seed. And uh I discipled a couple guys through the Lord Jesus Christ and and we ministered to them, discipled them. They were coming from prison and and addiction backgrounds, and now uh they're they're housed, they're working full-time, and we go out into the streets and we we preach to the lost, we preach to the homeless and addicted, and we show them the love of Jesus Christ. We bring them to Bible study, get them stabilized and housed, and then we're fishermen of men. And then we we pray that God uh multiplies uh for the kingdom.

SPEAKER_01 32:39

Wonderful work you're doing there, and it's very inspiring to all of us, James. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 32:44

Thank you, brother. Appreciate you very much.