“At What Level are You Jewish?”?

Now you say, “Well Billie, this is a lot of interesting stuff, but what does it have to do with the Great Sanhedrin?” I’ll get there.

I was on a plane several years ago—I’ve forgotten the number. Caroline says I can’t keep up with stuff like that, and I think she’s right. There was a Jewish lady sitting next to me, very brilliant. She was a professor of history at Berkeley, and we got into small talk. It was a flight from Dallas to Los Angeles, so we had plenty of time. Very nice lady. She asked, “Well, what do you do?” I wear many hats, but I told her I’m an author and a Baptist minister. She said, “Well, that’s really interesting.”

I said, “Tell me about you being a history professor.” She said, “Oh, I love history, and that’s why I became a history professor. I just fell in love with it.” I said, “Well, I need to ask you a Gentile question.” Notice what I did—I needed to ask her what kind of question? A Gentile question. So she looked at me and said, “Well, great, what is it?”

I said, “At what level are you Jewish?” She looked at me, stunned, and said, “At what level am I Jewish? What do you mean by that?” I said, “Well, I could be totally wrong as a Gentile—this is ignorance on my part—but my best understanding would be…” Now, I want you to look at the four bullets as I read them.

One could simply be an Israeli citizen who is Orthodox and deeply believes in Jehovah as their God. I said that to her, and I didn’t have this in front of me; I had it memorized in my mind. She said, “You’re right.” I said, “Well, I think another might be that you could just live anywhere and attend synagogue and observe Hebrew dates and traditions.” She said, “That is also true.”

I said, “Thirdly, we kind of on the outside looking in feel like you could be culturally Jewish but not practice the Jewish faith.” She said, “Well, that’s largely true with many Jewish people today.” I said, “All right, there’s a fourth one. We think you could actually be an atheist or an agnostic but biologically be Jewish.”

Now I’m going to add a fifth one. I thought about this before, after I’d already written the sermon. I went back and did some research yesterday again on who has converted to Judaism in our lifetime that I thought y’all might find interesting. You cannot be born Jewish, but you can be a Gentile in your past and convert to Judaism.  Sammy Davis Jr., Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe. Did you know it? And there’s a long list, more, and they’re very happy and proud of it, and they have the list for you to study on the internet.

Now, what does it mean, then, to be Jewish? She looked at me and said, “I have never had a conversation like this before. This is really interesting.” She said, “In other words, when I tell you I’m Jewish, you don’t really know what that means.” I said, “That’s correct. I have tons of Jewish friends. Some of my closest friends are Jewish, but I always want to know: at what level are you Jewish?” She said, “You know, that’s a fair question.”

Caiaphas and Annis

I said, “All right, now I want you to stay really tuned. I’d like to ask you another Gentile question.” She said, “Well, please do, what is it?” I said, “I’d like to know, since you’re a professor of history, what is your opinion of Caiaphas and Annis?” She had this puzzled look on her face and said, “Who are they?”

I said, “Well, Caiaphas and Annis led the Great Sanhedrin to make the most important decision in Hebrew history.” She said, “How can I be a professor of history and not know this? Please, sir, explain what you mean.” I said, “All right, are you ready?”

Why am I telling you all this? My dad, whom I enormously respect—he was a super intelligent man—said, “Billie, the most intelligent people in the world are German Jews. Never forget it.” So I didn’t forget it. I was probably 10 when he took me there to Germany, and I went to see Dachau and Auschwitz so I could understand. He said, “I want you to understand evil and what was done to the Jewish people.” Man, at 10 years old, I could hardly take it in, but I did, and I learned.

Then, if you’ll do research on Einstein and other great Jewish minds, the tremendous intellect—you will find an incredible intelligence. Most of them come from the Rhine River Valley in Germany. That’s the highest IQ, and this is not by guesswork. Look it up when you get home, and you’ll find that the scholars say that over the last thousand years, the highest level of IQ and intelligence has come from the Rhine River Valley in Germany from Jewish people.

Now let me make this strong for you. Einstein’s IQ was 165. Now, Elon Musk, pretty smart guy, right? His is 155. If you take their intelligence, you would think they would understand the meaning of the Great Sanhedrin.

So, dear brothers that are Jewish and are listening to this, pay attention.

Rome and The Great Sanhedrin

The Great Sanhedrin lasted for approximately 130 years, maybe 132, but right around there. The word Sanhedrin is not Hebrew, it’s Greek. That Greek word was used for the Roman Senate 200 years before Christ. So, when the Romans took over Israel in 64 BC, they instituted what’s called the Sanhedrin. The Romans formed the Great Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, and it lasted 130 years. They formed five of them—four smaller ones, and one great one.

Now, what did they do? The Romans knew that there had to be local judges to administrate things that would happen within the culture, so they used their term and their approach, which was the Senate, and applied it to Israel. Everybody reads the Bible and thinks the Hebrews came up with the Sanhedrin, but it had nothing to do with it. It was 100% Roman. And guess who chose the high priests—Caiaphas and Annas? Rome did.

Annas even made a trip all the way to Rome to try to get one of his friends to be the high priest, but the Romans turned him down and said, “You be the high priest.” So, Annas and five of his sons became high priests in Israel, every one of them under Roman rule.

Now, y’all aren’t feeling this yet—you will. Guess who decided if Jesus was the Christ? A Roman-appointed person who was the head of the Great Sanhedrin, not chosen by their peers. Caiaphas, who was the son-in-law of Annas and the acting high priest, rejected the divinity of Christ. He was the actual head of the Great Sanhedrin when it happened. Annas was there from AD 6, I believe, to about AD 15, if I’m not mistaken—maybe AD 16. Then Caiaphas was over it for 16 years, and he was the head at the time when Jesus was brought before him to decide whether or not the Sanhedrin would accept or reject Jesus as the Christ.

Our Hebrew friends, our Jewish friends, don’t even begin to understand it. If a professor of history at Berkeley didn’t understand it and had never even heard their names, you can imagine how strange this is.

Now stay with me. Down through history, who was it that God spoke through to the Hebrew people for them to make their major religious decisions? Every time, it was a prophet. With Moses and Aaron, Aaron was the priest, and Moses was—come on, say it—a prophet. Nobody who was a priest ever made a major decision. Neither did the rabbis. It was always a prophet down through all of Old Testament history.

Another interesting fact: the Sanhedrin ordained every rabbi in Israel for those 130 years. When the Sanhedrin was dissolved by Rome in AD 70, when the temple was destroyed, there was no ordination of rabbis available that could be practiced. Rome said, “Okay, we’ll let you have little bitty sanhedrins, but the big one is over.” Then, in AD 356, Rome said, “Enough! We’re not going to have any more sanhedrins of any size in the world in the Roman Empire.” And they shut it down. For the next several hundred years, until the 14th century, there were no rabbis in Judaism. Can y’all believe this?

I don’t think my Jewish friends know it. It was in Europe, slowly, that they began to be called rabbis again.

Who Are You Going to Believe?

Let me share another story. I explained this to an attorney who was one of my trainees. We call it disciple-making, and I had been discipling this attorney in Houston for a number of years. He’s a brilliant guy. I told him this, and this is how I led my first Jewish friend to faith in Christ. I have another Jewish friend here today, and I didn’t lead her to Christ this way—she’s smiling—but my first Jewish person came to faith in Christ through this exact approach, by explaining the Sanhedrin to them.

Because – who are you going to believe? Two priests appointed by Rome, who were not known for their character? They never healed anyone, never walked on water—no, no, no.  They never did anything like Jesus and John. You’ve got two great prophets, John the Baptist, and they rejected him, and he was ultimately beheaded because of it.

Then you have Christ, who performed miracles, fed thousands, walked on water, raised the dead—you name it. So, who are you going to believe? These Jews or those Jews? There’s not a Gentile in the house, not one of us. History rests on the decision of two Jewish leaders, Caiaphas and Annas. The countless millions that have suffered in Judaism because of their ignorance of their own history, and not realizing who they were putting their confidence in, is shocking when you think about the level of their intelligence.

I explained this to my attorney friend, and he said, “Bill, one of my good friends is the head rabbi for Houston. I want to go and ask him about this.” I said, “I wish you would. Prove me wrong if I’m missing something here.” So, he went to his friend’s office and said, “I want to ask you a Gentile question: what is your opinion of the high priests Caiaphas and Annas?”

Now listen—the rabbi said, “They are the worst representation of the rabbinical tradition in the history of our faith.” My friend looked at the rabbi and asked, “Why did you believe them instead of John and Jesus?” The rabbi became angry and said, “You tricked me! You tricked me!” My attorney friend replied, “It doesn’t sound like a trick to me. It sounds like you had a lack of information and made a really bad decision.”

Are y’all following what I’m trying to say? The world’s history literally wraps around the Great Sanhedrin. No decision made in the history of the world was as important as the acceptance or rejection of our Savior. The Hebrew people, over and over, when you read the Old Testament—there are so many verses, but I don’t have time to cover them all today—I’ll give you just snippets. Over and over, the Old Testament says, “You and your seed will be a blessing to the entire world and every nation.”

With 72 million Jews living, I went through the list of all the nations yesterday. There are only a small number of them, just a tiny fraction. Only 40,000 in all of Mexico. I could keep going—Argentina, and I memorized other countries. There is no way on earth that they are a blessing to all the nations on earth unless it is through the Christ and through the seed of Abraham, coming right down the line through David and straight to the birth of Christ. The virgin birth, the miracle—it happened when all the Gentiles of the world had the privilege of being able to enter in to the blessing of God’s love and forgiveness. That’s what John 3:16 is all about.

Now, when I’m with my Jewish friends and I look at them and I say, “I’m a whole lot more Jewish than you are,” it always shocks them. But I’m telling the truth. I worship a Jew. Everything I own, even the shirt on my back, belongs to a Jew. I don’t have anything, and neither do you, by the way—everything we have belongs to God. And I’ve got news for you, His Son’s Jewish. Jesus Christ was Jewish. Every one of us would be a Jew today—this includes over two and a half billion Catholics and Protestants—if the Sanhedrin had made the opposite decision than the one they made. You can take that to the bank.

Reflection & Response

Now, I have to ask you this today: where are you?

Somewhere along your journey, did you come to the decision that Jesus Christ is exactly who He said He was? He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me.” That’s what offended the great Sanhedrin. They said, “Oh, no, no, no.” They wanted someone who would defeat Rome. They were thinking politically, not spiritually.

When Jesus was brought before Pilate, He wouldn’t speak. Pilate said, “Aren’t you going to speak to me? I have the power to crucify you or let you live.” And Jesus said, “You would have no power over me whatsoever if it were not given to you from above.” From that moment, Pilate began to try to free Him. He changed his entire approach toward Jesus. Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would have fought. My kingdom is not of this world.”

Now, His kingdom, y’all, is here—inside, within us. You have to invite the King in. In the Book of Revelation, Jesus says, “I stand at the door and knock.” Why does He knock? Because He’s a gentleman. He wants admission into our hearts, but He will not force His way in. He has to be invited.

I remember very well when I was a youngster, 10 years old, lying in my bed. I awoke in the middle of the night, probably 2 a.m. My grandmother had given me a Bible. I didn’t know how to pray, and many of you may feel that prayer isn’t a great strength, I don’t know. You might not know how to pray. But it doesn’t matter. The thief on the cross didn’t know how to pray either. All he said were a few words, and Jesus looked at him and said, “Today, you will be with me in paradise.”

All I said was “yes.” That’s all I knew to say.  I felt Him. Intellectually, I knew I needed God. I didn’t fully understand the Trinity, but I understood that my grandmother had explained to me that the way to know God is through His Son. So I said “yes” to Jesus, and then I went to wake up my father at 2 in the morning, who was an agnostic, and told him I had become a Christian. My dad said, “Don’t you tell anybody!” He was upset.

Now, from that day until now, you can see how obedient I’ve been! I’ve been telling people about Jesus, whom I met at the age of 10, from that moment forward. Two weeks later, I witnessed to my neighbor down the street, who was my age. Four weeks after that, I led my first person to faith in Christ—Steven Ley—who became a very famous composer. He wrote “Worthy is the Lamb,” which sold 13 million copies. Steven has been used mightily by God. And I want to tell you, whether you’re young or old, it’s never too late to meet the Savior.

Prayer

I’m going to ask you to bow your heads and let’s pray together. If you’ve never invited Christ into your heart, whether you’re here or listening online, quietly pray in your own heart:

“Lord Jesus, I’m a sinner. I need a Savior. I do believe in you. I believe you always spoke the truth. I believe that when John said you were the Son of God and the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, he was right. I’m placing my faith in you today. I’m asking you to come into my heart, take control of my life, forgive my past, and guide my future. I will belong to you from this moment forward. I will tell others about you, read your word, attend a good church, and seek to obey you in every decision. I love you. Thank you for loving me. In Jesus’ name, amen.”