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Nehemia: So, this is the key question of this entire program I’m doing with you, Michael. Have you ever said, “Thus sayeth Yehovah,” and prophesied?

Nehemia: Shalom, this is Nehemia Gordon and welcome to Hebrew Voices. Today, I am on the set of Shabbat Night Live with Michael Rood, and I'm going to do something very special, something I've never done. I'm going to expose a false prophet. Shalom, Michael.

Michael: Shalom, Nehemia. It is a privilege and a pleasure to be with you. I've been a big fan of Hebrew Voices, and the guests that you've had on these last few years is like… you know, I'm pleased that I get to be on your program.

Nehemia: And it’s really an honor to have you on my program. You've interviewed me so many times, and this time I came to do a series with you. And I said, “Michael, would you allow me to turn the tables and interview you instead?” And really, because I want to cut through to an issue that I think a lot of my audience is concerned about, and I know that they've expressed it to me. They say, “Nehemia, you go on and you do your programs, and we love what you do.” And some of my audience loves you as well, but other ones, Michael, say, “Nehemia, how can you be on with Michael? He's a false prophet.”

So, I want to expose that. And really, I want to expose the accusation that you're a false prophet and find out really what is it that you have said. Why is it that people think this? Can we help people by putting some information out there and cutting through some of this confusion?

I want to read a quote. I put feelers out to some folks. I said, “I've been hearing for years these accusations that Michael is a false prophet.” And I know people make accusations about me, and I know you get grief for having me on your program because of some of the false accusations.

Michael: Right.

Nehemia: And I thought, if people are lying about things that I do, I shouldn't just believe what they say about you. Let's find out what's really going on here. And I put the feelers out and asked, “What are the worst things that people are saying about Michael, as far as prophecies?” And there were two issues that came up.

One is an event that they said that you, I guess, foretold that you believed would happen in around 1999, and we'll talk about that in a minute. And the other is this last year in 2017. And it wasn't even so much what you said, this is what I realized when I talked to quite a number of people, and I kept hearing the same issue come up. It wasn't what you had said, it was the way that some people, a very small number of people, but some people out there, and I want to acknowledge that, the way that some people responded to what you said. And I want to read a quote. This is something that someone sent to me, and he got this from a friend of a friend, right? And they said, “Michael has misled people, especially those who liquidated all their assets in preparation for a cataclysmic event that never came.” Michael, have you ever told people they should liquidate all their assets for a cataclysmic event?

Michael: No, I've never said that. Really, some of this goes back to 1999. In the spring of the year 2000, I made a statement, and this was on national television. It was on a nationally syndicated radio talk show with Bo Coffey. And I said, “If we have corrected the calendar for this year according to the...”

Nehemia: I want to stop you. I heard the word "if.”

Michael: That’s right.

Nehemia: That's a key phrase, guys, we're gonna come back to that. Michael said, "if.” So, Michael, I’m gonna stop you here. You didn't say, "Thus sayeth the Lord, thus sayeth Yahweh, thus sayeth Yehovah.” You’re saying, “if.” In other words, you're looking at calculations that you've worked out, and you're saying, “If these calculations are correct, then this is what could happen.”

Michael: Right, and you're actually involved in this. Not because of your choice, but because of the work that you had been doing with correcting the calendar for the Aviv. At that time in 2000, there were still questions. “Have you really solved all of the situation to know when the barley is Aviv?”

Nehemia: I think there will continue to be questions until the Messiah comes. We're doing the best we can with the information we have.

Michael: So, that's why I said "if.” I said, “If we have corrected the calendar this year for the Aviv barley, then we will see violence erupt in Jerusalem before sundown September 28th.” And so, that very thing is that I said right from the beginning, “This is my calculation. These are calculations that I worked out, because sundown September 28 would be then the day of trumpets.” And this would be seven years from when Israel entered into the covenant with death, as this is what I was reading from the Oslo Peace Accord, and from Isaiah's prophecies, that Israel would do wickedly against God's covenant with Abraham.

They would trade land for the promise of peace. They would make a covenant with death and an agreement with hell that the Almighty said he would annul by violence. And so, I was calculating from when that was made, which was in 1993, which was the day of trumpets back then; seven years later will be sundown, September 28. Now, I wasn't going to use by Tishrei 1, because nobody in the world would understand what it's talking about, basically. So, I said September 28, sundown in Jerusalem, violence would erupt and that would annul the covenant with death. That was the point.

So, the "if" was, okay, I am doing these calculations. And then, that year in September, I was stuck in America, I could not get back to Israel. I was in Dallas, and we didn't get the news until two days later that that afternoon, September 28, that Ariel Sharon, not yet Prime Minister, went up onto the Temple Mount with the Book of Ezekiel, read about the prophecy of the two sticks and that is when violence erupted. The Second Intifada began, and there has been bloodshed from that day on. Both of us have lived through this violence and bloodshed.

Nehemia: I have to say, I remember as a young kid reading about war, and seeing documentaries about people surviving through wars. And you don't really understand it until you actually live through one of these things. The Second Intifada, and we were discussing this a few days ago, and you said, “Well, maybe it wasn't as violent as I expected.”

Michael: I expected it to really ramp up.

Nehemia: You weren't in Israel the whole time. It was pretty violent. I mean, just to give you an idea of the Second Intifada, they would literally begin the nightly news...And it went from 2000 until around 2003, even petering out into 2004. And there were periods when in the nightly news in Israel, in the Hebrew news, they would say, “The following were the terrorist attacks for today.” And they would only list the terrorist attacks in which people were killed, not the ones in which people were wounded, because there just wasn't enough time in the nightly news. So, it was pretty bad.

Now, Michael, for me, the point isn't whether you were right about 1999 or whether you were wrong about 1999. The point for me, that I want to bring out for people, and I want people to listen to what Michael is saying, the point for me is that you said "if.” You said, “I'm calculating.” What you didn't say is what a prophet would have to say to be a true prophet or a false prophet. What a prophet would have to say is something that we find in the Tanakh, a formula such as, “Thus sayeth Yehovah. Yehovah has shown me.” “Ko her'ani Yehovah,” this is what Amos says.

When the prophet is speaking, he is speaking Yehovah's words, or something that Yehovah has shown him in the throne room. And I want to bring this. This is from the Book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah is one of the key prophets who helps us understand this. And the reason he does is because in his day, there were so many false prophets. And there had been false prophets before who were prophets of Ba'al and prophets of Ashera. But in Jeremiah's time, these were Torah-keeping prophets who proclaimed the name “Yehovah,” and they were liars. And so, Jeremiah confronts them. I have a Torah Pearl or a Hebrew Voice, something about that on my website, nehemiaswall.com talking about Jeremiah 28, so I'm not gonna get into that.

But Jeremiah 23 is one of the key passages in the Tanakh for talking about prophets, true and false. He confronts them in verse 18. He says, “Mi amad besod Yehovah?” “Who has stood in the counsel of Yehovah?” And what is the counsel of Yehovah? This is not some abstract thing. This is what we see in 1 Kings 22. This is what we see in many of the prophetic visions, that they're standing in the throne room. Yehovah is on the throne, and He's surrounded by the angels, the spirits in the heaven. And the prophet is overhearing what Yehovah is saying to the angels, or maybe He’s speaking directly to the prophet. “Who has stood in the counsel of Yehovah and has seen, let him make heard his word,” meaning, the word that he heard Yehovah speak. “If you claim to be a prophet, let people hear the words that you heard.” He says, “Mi hikshiv devarim veyishma,” “Who has heard My word,” or “his word, and has heard.” And then in verse 21 God says, “I did not send the prophets, yet they ran. I did not speak to them, yet they prophesied.” And then in verse 22 He says, “If they stood in My counsel,” meaning in my throne room, “let them make heard the words to my people, that they return from their evil way.” Meaning, the whole point of the prophecy is so that the people will repent anyway.

And what these prophets were coming along and saying is, “Guys, you've got nothing to worry about. You're right with God. You don't have to repent.” And in fact, in this specific situation, Babylon will be destroyed and in a number of years Hananiah, for example, in two years the vessels will be returned to the Temple. And Jeremiah is telling them, “Guys, you're going into exile. You need to repent. You're sinners and you're going into exile. At this point it's even too late. You're eventually going to go into exile and be there for a period of time for 70 years and be brought back, but you must repent.”

And Jeremiah is saying to the false prophets, “Look, if you heard Yehovah speaking in the throne room, let the people know what you heard so that they can repent. And if not, you are falsely prophesying.” And what made it a false prophecy is that they said, “Thus sayeth Yehovah.” So, this is the key question of this entire program I'm doing with you, Michael. Have you ever said, “Thus sayeth Yehovah,” and prophesied?

Michael: Yes, I have said, “Thus sayeth the Lord, there will be no pre-tribulation rapture.” And now I'm not saying that I got this from the throne room. I'm reading the Scriptures.

Nehemia: Okay, beautiful.

Michael: This is plainly what the Scriptures teach, and this is against the false prophecies of a pre-tribulation rapture that I was raised with, that I taught for 20 years. And I was prophesying falsely when I was leading people down that primrose path that we're all going to be raptured out of here in the middle of a five-course Sunday brunch at the country club on Sunday afternoon.

Nehemia: There's a lot to unpack here. So, first of all, when you said, "Thus sayeth the Lord,” you meant, “in the Bible.”

Michael: That’s right.

Nehemia: Not something you heard in the throne room, okay.

Michael: That's right.

Nehemia: And this is a cultural disconnect that I think a lot of Christians are having. This is the impression I get from speaking to a lot of people and they'll say, “Anybody who's standing up before the pulpit, and he is there, essentially, as God's representative, he's the preacher. He has authority and you have to accept what he says. And if he's wrong, he's a false prophet.” And that's not the Tanakh definition of a false prophet. That's not Deuteronomy 13, that's not Deuteronomy 18.

Deuteronomy 13 and 18, those are people who are claiming, “These are not my words. These are the words that Yehovah is speaking through me, or the words I overheard Him speak to the angels. Or the words that have been presented to me in a prophetic experience.” And if we had more time, we could go into that whole issue. Ezekiel's experience was slightly different than Jeremiah's, there's a lot to unpack there. But you made a statement, I want to figure out what you said. You said, “I was prophesying falsely in the...” leading people down the primrose path. At that point, were you saying, “I heard God speak these words in the throne room.” Or were you using it figuratively, saying you were prophesizing?

Michael: No, it's figurative.

Nehemia: Okay, just to be clear.

Michael: This is clearly what the Bible teaches against what I had been proclaiming, basically, for more than 20 years.

Nehemia: Guys, this is a beautiful example. I mean, this was just off the cuff, right? This is a beautiful example, Michael. You just used the term “false prophecy” in the colloquial Christian sense. But that's not the Jeremiah 23 sense. It's not the Deuteronomy 18 and Deuteronomy 13 sense, because that's a very heavy standard. It's the standard that if you speak those words and you're wrong, you get stoned to death. And so, Christians, I think, a lot of time would use the word "prophecy" and they don't mean it in the Tanakh sense. And they don't realize there's two different... I mean, even just here, right now, you used it in this sort of metaphorical way.

Michael: Really, Paul does the same thing. He says, “I think the Lord. The Lord showed me…” Another time he says, “I’m speaking. This is not the Lord. This is just my take on it.” He makes that differentiation. But yet, everyone wants to use Paul and hold him to a standard of Christianity, and not realize that one of it is, “This is revelation. I got this from heaven.” And another one, “This is my opinion. Listen to me, see if it fits, see if this works.”

Nehemia: Well, and that reminds me of like, in the book of Kohelet, or Ecclesiastes, where Solomon is speaking there and he says, “I looked in my heart.” In other words, he's struggling with these issues, trying to figure them out. And he's the wisest man who has divine wisdom, so I kind of pay attention to him and listen to him. But that's not the same thing, and that's why in the Tanakh, Kohelet, Ecclesiastes, is not in the section of the Prophets. There's the Torah, the Prophets and the writings. It's in the writings. It's not in the Nevi'im, in the Prophets, because it's a different sort of experience, a different sort of teaching.

And the problem we have here is, there are these words that are being thrown around and not in the Deuteronomy 18 sense. And I thought you were gonna go with Paul into 1 Corinthians, where he goes into this whole issue of, there's essentially two different types of prophetic experience that Paul is describing, and one of them is a Jeremiah 23, Deuteronomy 18 type, and the other one is not. The other one is, “I don't have the full picture. I'm trying to figure this out. I'm looking into this mirror, into the glass darkly, as I understand it.” That's not the Jeremiah 23, Deuteronomy 18 experience.

Okay, so we've got a lot going on here, Michael. We're gonna take a break in a few minutes, but before we get to that I want you to talk about 2017; there was a prophecy that you had, supposedly. I say "supposedly" because you didn't present it as a prophecy, so how could you be a false prophet? Teaching something that's incorrect, and whether you were correct or not, that's not even the issue to me. Teaching something incorrect doesn't make you a false prophet. It makes you someone who's doing your best today in the exile, to try to figure out what it says in the Bible. So, tell the people about the 2017 situation.

Michael: I don't think I could really do that unless I step back a little bit into the previous thing that we were talking about.

Nehemia: In ‘99.

Michael: That's right. In 1999, I specifically said on television, on radio, I said, “I did not receive this from an angel in heaven. This is simply calculations, and I believe and said that the Creator runs the universe according to His calendar and His time clock.” And what happened on September 28th, when we saw violence erupt, annulling the covenant with death. And that's literally what happened. Annulling that Oslo Peace Accord then I said, “This proves the Almighty runs the universe according to His calendar and His time clock.” And never could I say, because I had figured this out and called this ancient prophecy on that date. And as far as I know, it's the first time this has been done, at least in our generation.

And it was not done by the Lord telling me anything. I'm just a student. I've been trying to work these things out. But what happened, Nehemia, is that all that spring and summer, people were saying, “I am saying that Jesus is coming back before sundown, September 28.” And it didn't matter how many times I corrected it, it's because most Christians, they have in their mind, the only thing that's going to happen, the next thing that's going to happen is the return of Jesus. And I say that is ridiculous. And more than 10 years before, I wrote “The Mystery of Iniquity.” The subtitle is, “The Legal Prerequisites for the Return of the Messiah.” I'm saying that he cannot return tomorrow. He can't return next week. I'm saying that he can't return five years from right now.

There are things that must take place, because God, when He gives His word, the universe spins around His word. He will not deny His word. He is not going to change it without due course. And so, when you've got the whole Christian world, the next thing they think is going to happen is the return, they interpret just about everything I say into, “Jesus is going to return on this date.” And that is so far… I'm trying to get rid of this ridiculous notion that I was raised with, that the next thing on the prophetic calendar is the return of Yeshua.

Nehemia: So, if I can summarize, you had what we could call, in the broadest possible terms, you had an end-times prediction, based on calculations and study, which is profoundly not a prophecy. And you specifically said it was not an angelic revelation.

Michael: It wasn't even real end-times, it's a prerequisite to the end-time prophecy.

Nehemia: Well, I'm using "end-times" in the Jewish sense, “akharit hayamim,” in the broadest possible sense of, there's a whole lot of things that are gonna happen in akharit hayamim, in these latter days. And there'll be a sequence of events. And look, I believe that those events have already begun, that we are essentially in the beginning of the end-times. I'm not the first Jew to say this. Rabbi Kook famously called this “atkhalta de'geula,” “the beginning of the redemption,” of the Jews returning to the land of Israel, restoring their language. So, this is actually a very common thought in the Jewish world. But they immediately interpreted your calculation and prediction into Jesus is coming back. It's a prophecy.

Michael: Sell everything you have, wrap up in a bedsheet, sit on a mountainside or on the hood of a car, and wait for him to return.

Nehemia: And just to be clear, that's not what Michael is actually telling you to do.

Michael: I wouldn’t do it myself.

Nehemia: Okay, he's not telling you to do that. So, Michael, we're gonna come back. We're going to talk about the prediction, not prophecy, of 2017. And we're gonna get more into some verses, because my audience loves going back to the sources. We've gotta look at the verses and see what they say, because ultimately, what you and I say isn't that important. What's important is what's written in the ancient Hebrew sources, so we will be right back.

Shalom, I am back with Michael Rood, and we are exposing a false prophet today. I want to read the passage in Deuteronomy chapter 18 verse 20, which speaks about the false prophet. It says, “But the Prophet who speaks presumptuously a word in My name…” and presumptuously in Hebrew means “on purpose,” meaning he knows that this is not a word that has been received from Yehovah, “that which I did not command him to speak. Or he speaks in the name of another god, that prophet shall die.” And so, when people are accusing you of being a false prophet, Michael, that's a very serious accusation from a Torah perspective. That would indicate that you got up before a crowd of people and said, “These are the words Yehovah gave me, I am speaking them to you. He gave me these to communicate to you.” And if God didn't do that, then that's a false prophecy.

And I want to make a really important distinction here. We have this account in Genesis 14, and it's about this King, Avimelekh. There's a whole story with Abraham and Sarah there. And Avimelekh has a dream, and God appears to him in the dream, and he speaks to him. And God, in that dream, says to Avimelekh, “You need to go to Abraham and ask him to pray for you, ki navi hu, for he is a Prophet.” And you read that, and you say, “Wait a minute. Isn't Avimelekh a Prophet, because God is speaking to him in a dream?” And the answer is no, not in a Tanakh sense. A prophetic experience is different than that. And look, I've shared experiences I've had. I've shared the experience I had with Elijah. I talked about that in the “Open Door” series, and I've had some other experiences on top of the traditional site of Mount Sinai. I've shared that. Those were not prophecies. That is not the prophetic experience described in the Tanakh. All I can tell people is, that's what I saw and experienced. Ultimately, I can't say that I was in the throne room and God spoke to me and gave me this message to give to people, because that hasn't happened. That did not happen.

And this is where I think Christians get very confused, because someone will say, “I was praying, and God told me...” And I don’t think they don’t mean in the sense that God told Ezekiel and God told things to Jeremiah. And if they do, then we actually do have a problem. Certainly, a Jew who is describing this sort of experience and will talk about things like “ruakh hakodesh,” which is the Holy Spirit, when a Jew talks about a Rabbi having ruakh hakodesh, he does not mean the Jeremiah type of prophecy. He does not mean the Deuteronomy type of prophecy. Maimonides actually talks about this in excruciating detail, that ruakh hakodesh is a different sort of experience. It is not the classical prophetic experience of Deuteronomy and Jeremiah and the Tanakh, in general.

So, this is a very important distinction that I think is lost. And then, people hear you talking, and you say, “I received confirmation.” And this was in a video, apparently, in 2016, about what you believed would happen, based on your calculations in 2017. And they say, “Well, Michael says he received confirmation. Michael’s claiming that he was in the throne room and heard God tell him, or Yeshua spoke to him directly,” or however. But that's not what you were saying. You explained to me what you meant by "received confirmation.” And it was something that some people would say that was just a coincidence, something that happened. And you looked at that, and it had profound meaning to you. That event, we don't have to go into it.

It’s an important story, but the point here is, people interpreted your words and attributed things to you that you didn't actually say. And I'm gonna let you speak in a minute, but I want to get quickly to Amos 7, 9 through 11. There's a prophecy there of Amos. I'll summarize it really quickly. I'll read it. He says, “The high places of Isaac will be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel will be destroyed. And I will raise up against the House of Jeroboam a sword.” This is the prophecy of Amos, and the response to this was a false prophecy. A false prophet came along named Amaziah, who was the high priest of Bethel, and Bethel was a high place. It was a forbidden sanctuary, which was contrary to the Torah, contrary to Leviticus 17 and Deuteronomy 12.

And the priest of Bethel hears this prophecy, and he's enraged. He contacts Jeroboam, the King of Israel, and he quotes the prophecy of Amos, but he misquotes it. He says, “For thus says Amos.” This is Amaziah speaking, not Amos. “For thus says Amos, ‘Jeroboam will die by a sword and Israel will surely be exiled from its land.’” And you read this, and this is a problem. This is a problem talked about in medieval biblical studies, in medieval commentaries. They say, “Wait a minute. If Amos said it, Amos is a false prophet. Because, Jeroboam…” this Jeroboam the second, the son of Jehoash. “Jeroboam didn't die by the sword.” In fact, Jeroboam expanded the kingdom of Israel, the northern kingdom, to the greatest extent it had during the entire period of its existence after the kingdom split. It was his son Zachariah who was assassinated and killed after six months, and where the prophecy of Amos was fulfilled.

But Amos in the actual prophecy spoke about the “House of Jeroboam” and when Amaziah was accusing him, he twisted it. He dropped one little word, “house.” Who needs that little word? And you can even say that these were the words of Amos, but not the complete words of Amos. There's a word left out, turning Amos into a false prophet. And really here, it's the misquotation and misunderstanding that causes the problem.

And I think, Michael, in your case, that's the case. I mean, we did a program in August 2017. I listened to it again this morning, just to refresh my memory. And you said very clearly... I'm gonna quote exactly what you said here, Michael, because you may not recall, either. And this is directed at the people not in the past, but people in the future who will hear you teaching this, or other people teaching this kind of thing, and be convinced that a cataclysmic event, a thermonuclear war is about to happen. And even despite that, here is what Michael said, and I know you, I think you believed with all your heart there would be a thermonuclear war in September 2017, and it didn't happen.

And here's what you said a month before that. It was broadcast a month before that. You said, “This is not something to get shaken up about.” That's a direct quote from Michael's words. And then you say a few more things and you said, “Look, we have a job to do.” In other words, you were telling the people, be prepared. This is what could happen. And if it happens, you should be prepared, but it might not happen. And you should be prepared for that eventuality, as well.

Michael: That's right. And to say I believed it with all my heart... You know, I believed it enough to where I was going to take action. I wanted to be where the action was. Left my wife behind here in Charlotte, North Carolina and knowing that if this goes down... You know, I have got to respond to the call of the Almighty and do what I'm supposed to do in that situation. And so, I went to Jerusalem for that very thing.

This goes a few years back, like in 2005. It was at that time that I was looking at this Jubilee cycle, 1917, 1967, the very next one in the series would be 2017. And I was saying, “Has not the Almighty shown us His Jubilee cycle?” And so, it was just a simple question at that time. And then I came across the prophecy as it was reported from this German Rabbi. And you also did research on it. We were sitting in the hot tub together, and you were contacting people in Israel, reading articles in Hebrew…

Nehemia: That’s Gidon Ariel, who had done the research on this and found out we can't verify that the Rabbi even said that in the first place.

Michael: That’s right.

Nehemia: And we talked about that on your program.

Michael: Yeah, yeah. That was a month before I even went to Israel, that this may not even be a realistic prophecy. And there are other ways that maybe it was lost and things like that. But I felt there was enough there that as a marine, the way I've been trained, it's like, if there's danger, if I know something is going to happen, I charge into it. I don't hold back. I realized that there's danger.

You know, I've picked up the female suicide bomber's head off the street after she blew my eardrums out in 2002 in Jerusalem, and then picked up an M16 rifle that was blown out of the arms of an Israeli soldier. And I said, “I'm going to handle your weapon if anything happens, okay?” And I said, “I'm a US Marine.” I didn't have to explain I'm a fat old US Marine; a US Marine was good enough. And so, I was ready to engage in this. But what did happen is that we had all these people come to Jerusalem, thinking that the return was going to happen, because of this sign in the heavens of Revelation 12.

And I went there and spoke to hundreds of people for those few days, and I told them, “This is not the sign. You're misreading this thing, and He's not going to return.” Hundreds of people weeping and crying on the Mount of Olives, and I just stayed out of it. I wouldn't dignify it because this is not the Scripture story. These are the false teachings that has gone through Christendom that is getting everyone to expect something that's not going to happen.

And so, I'm looking at Joel. I'm looking at a prophecy that an invading army is going to leave behind them a desolate smoking wasteland, the moon turned to blood, and that the Almighty is going to fight against them, and the latter rain outpouring takes place. That's what I'm looking for. I'm willing to put myself in that desolation to be there for the latter rain outpouring, because I know that's real.

Nehemia: And this is what you talked about in your book, “The Mystery of Iniquity.” There are certain prerequisites that have to happen before, as you described it, Yeshua returns. However, leading up to September 2017, you were teaching that it's a possibility, and it really was. I've looked into this, and from what I can find, you said statements of, “If, then, could,” which is not a prophecy, so you can't call him a false prophet. It is a study based on calculations, based on reading Scripture, based on patterns.

Michael: Based on patterns; this is what I do, the patterns of the chronological Gospels. It's my life.

Nehemia: Now, you believed there would be a thermonuclear war.

Michael: I believe there still will be, but it certainly wasn't then.

Nehemia: Okay, and you thought that could be the timing. It wasn’t. It could be some other timing from what you understand. Okay, and so, being prepared seems like a good idea, anyway. Guys, we were talking about this yesterday, and I gave the example, if you were a Christian prepper in northern Syria in 2015, and for years people had been laughing at you, and then ISIS came and killed everyone in the village, you might have been the one who survived, or might not have been. So, it's really easy to say in our cushy Western lifestyles that you don't really need to be prepared. All those are crazy people who are preparing for calamities and cataclysmic events.

Michael: We've gotta be optimistic.

Nehemia: Well, yeah. So, there's the Jewish saying that all the optimists ended up in Auschwitz. And what they meant by that is, when Hitler came to power, there were people who said, “We're outta here. We're gonna leave everything, and we're going to the United States, or we're going to the land of Israel.” And they were laughed at, they were ridiculed. They were saying, “Look, we've been here for 1,500 years in Europe. We're going to leave now just because of one crazy guy? This will pass.” And many of those people ended up, many of them being murdered. And it was the pessimists who in some cases survived, not always. But the point is that being prepared is always a good idea, but people have to take responsibility.

To paraphrase Paul, people have to work things out for themselves in fear and trembling, with prayer and study before the Creator of the universe. And I've actually taken Paul there and combined it with what I call the “Karaite motto.” The Karaite motto as a Karaite Jew is, “Search well in the Scripture, and do not blindly rely on anyone's opinion.”

Michael here is sharing his opinion with you. It's a learned opinion after years of study. If you are looking at the New Testament, you can look at what he said and take that with some weight, but you have to decide for yourselves and take responsibility. We heard this account from a friend of a friend, that someone leading up to the 2017 event that you were believing would happen, that they thought, “Okay, thermonuclear war. I'm gonna prepare,” and they put themselves into $20,000 of credit card debt.

And you weren't telling people to put themselves into $20,000 of credit card debt, but they're blaming you for it. This is an Amaziah situation, where he says what Michael said. That's not actually quite what Michael said, it wasn't quite what Amos said. In the case of Amos and Amaziah, it was a really subtle difference. One word, but that one word turned Amos into a false prophet.

Michael: That's why for 20 years I have never forbidden anyone from recording anything that I've done publicly, because I say, “If you're going to quote me, quote me correctly.” And so, people just make up stuff. I know that you had people searching for timecode. Give me the timecode.

Nehemia: The worst stuff they could come up with, I asked them. I said, “Give me all the dirt on Michael Rood being a false prophet, statements he said.” And look, maybe you misspoke. You have probably thousands of hours of recording. It's possible.

Michael: I do it all the time.

Nehemia: And people tend to misspeak. What's unequivocal is if you get up before the audience, Michael, and you say, “Thus sayeth the Lord, these are God's words, not mine.” And you haven't said that, right?

Michael: No, I never have.

Nehemia: Okay, you've heard it now here from the horse's mouth. He has not said that. So, look, people need to take responsibility. If they're racking up debt, preparing for this calamity, they need to take responsibility for their own actions.

We don't have a lot of time left. I want to read from Matthew chapter 24, because I think a lot of the people who are getting themselves into these situations are coming from a New Testament perspective. These are the words of Yeshua recorded in Matthew 24:24, “For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and produce great signs and omens to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. Take note, I have told you beforehand.” How much clearer could you be?

Michael: Yeah, that’s it.

Nehemia: How much clearer could you be! I've told you this in advance. I'm going to skip to verse 36, but guys, go read the entire context.

Michael: And part of it is that the false prophet will say he's coming back in secret, in tameion. Don't believe him.

Nehemia: Oh, you mean in the Greek, okay.

Michael: In the Greek, yeah.

Nehemia: “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the son, nor Michael Rood,” that's my version, “but only the Father.” And Michael Rood will be the first one to acknowledge this. And here's what people are doing. This is, I think, the most important takeaway for me of this conversation. As a Karaite Jew... And we don't have a lot of time, I have to say this quick. In Deuteronomy 17, when we don't know what to do, it tells us to go to the Priest at the Temple or the Judge that will be in those days. And the question that Jews had to confront in the exile is, we don't have a Temple, we don't have a Prophet, in the sense of Moses and Joshua and the Judges of the Book of Judges. We don't have that.

So, what do we do in the exile? And the Rabbinical response is, we don't need the Prophets or the High Priest. We have that authority given to us by God. The Karaite response to that was to say, each individual has the personal responsibility to do the best they can with what they have. It doesn't mean ignore what people have to say. If people have been studying Scripture for years, listen to what they have to say. But ultimately, you need to decide for yourself and take that responsibility. And that, to me, is the most important thing. When people take your words or they take my words and they say, “You can't disagree with Michael. You can't disagree with Nehemia.” What they've now done is they've turned my words... And I'll put it on myself. They've turned my words into the word of God, and that is idolatry.

Michael: Idolatry.

Nehemia: And only Yehovah's words are Yehovah's words. Not Nehemia's words, not Michael's words, not the words of any teacher of exile. Any teacher in the exile, he's doing the best he can with what he has. And ultimately, you are responsible to go back, each individual, to the word of Yehovah and work it out for yourself, in fear and trembling, with prayer and study before the Creator of the universe.

I want to read on Matthew 24, verse 40, “Then two will be in the field, one will be taken, and one will be left.” This is really interesting, because there was a situation in American history, the Second Great Awakening that led to the great disappointment. Guys, look it up. It was a situation where people were convinced Jesus was coming back in 1843, and then 1844, and there's people who didn't plant their fields. They said, “Why would I plant my field? It's a lot of work. Jesus is coming back.” And then they were destitute after that. They were destroyed financially. People starved because of it, and it was this massive situation the United States.

And here, Yeshua, if you believe him here in Matthew 24, he's saying, “There will be two in the field, one will be taken one will be left.” Well, how come they planted their fields? “Two women will be grinding meal together, one will be taken, and one will be left.” We don't have time to go through all this. “Keep awake, therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.” And I'm going to paraphrase Scott Laird, who I discussed this with yesterday. His paraphrase of this is, “Keep going until the end, because no one knows when it will happen.” And I think that's something you agree with completely. I agree with that completely, that we don't know when it's gonna happen. Michael, you asked me on programs to end with the Priestly blessing. Would you end this program with the Priestly blessing?

Michael: It would be my privilege. Thank you. Yevarekhekha Yehovah veyishmerekha. Ya'er Yehovah panav elekha viyekhuneka. Yisa Yehovah panav elekha, veyasem lekha shalom.

Nehemia: Amen.

Michael: Amen. Thank you, Nehemia.

Nehemia: Thank you, Michael. Shalom.

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