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Jan. 8, 2026 - Jim Bakker Show
28:19
The Jim Bakker Show with Larry Stamm
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Sharing Jewish Roots of Christianity 00:15:17
Welcome to the Jim Baker Family Show.
Our special guest today is Larry Stam.
Our co-host today is Reverend Mondo De La Vega.
And now here is your host, Pastor Ricky Baker.
Hello, friends.
You're watching the PTL Television Network.
This is the Jim Baker Family Host.
We want to say thank you for tuning in with us today.
Today, we have the honor of having Larry Stam with us here.
I want to say thank you for being here with us.
It says here, you're a first-generation Holocaust survivor.
So we're going to jump right into it, if you don't mind.
What is it like being a Jewish man in America today?
Well, it's challenging.
And it can be a challenge to be Jewish and a lover and follower of Jesus.
I can tell you a little bit of my story because not only anti-Semitism raging around the world, but I've experienced anti-Semitism in my own family.
I'm actually the son of a Holocaust survivor.
That's right.
My father was living in Bonn, Germany, in the spring of 1939.
Wow.
If you know anything about World War II, November 38, Kristallnach in Germany, my dad was six years old.
A gentleman had served in World War I with my grandpa Carl in the German army.
This man later would become an SS agent, was still sympathetic to my family.
This man put his life on the line, Ricky, and he falsified papers enabling my father and his family to escape Nazi Germany.
They made their way, a three-month boat ride to British Honduras.
We know it better today as Belize.
Eventually, they were there 11 months, made their way to Daytona Beach, Florida.
My dad met my mom.
I was born and raised.
I'm a Florida cracker.
Born and raised.
I grew up in a reformed Jewish household, a liberal expression of Judaism.
Socially and culturally, we were very connected to the Jewish community.
Religiously and spiritually, not so much, although I did receive a religious education, was bar mitzvah at 13.
And I always believed in God.
And I always believed ever since I could remember that he knew me and that I was special in his eyes.
But we didn't learn about Jesus in the synagogue, I assure you.
The first time people started sharing Jesus with me was in college.
People were telling me, Larry, Jesus is the promised Messiah.
He died for your sins and rose again from the dead, and that through faith in him, you could be forgiven.
You could be reconciled to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
You could know the Lord.
I was like, absolutely not.
I didn't want to hear about their Jesus.
We were taught Jesus was the God of the Gentiles.
He was not for us as Jews.
But the Holy Spirit kept moving.
People kept coming.
I was a student at the University of Florida.
People were sharing the gospel with me.
I came to faith in 1987, September 1987.
I was flying on an airplane and a gentleman sat next to me all wide-eyed.
I was reading a philosophy book and he said, a philosophy book?
Are you interested in philosophy?
And I said, yeah.
He said, great, man.
Let's talk.
I have a master's degree in philosophy.
And you might find this hard to believe, but he actually did most of the talking.
Yeah, I guarantee you he did.
And he shared his faith in Jesus with me.
And he said two things.
He said, you tell me you're Jewish, you believe in God.
I said, yeah.
He said, I challenge you to ask your God as you know him.
Ask the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob if Jesus is the promised Messiah.
I got off the airplane that day in early September 1987, Ricky, and I prayed a prayer of faith.
I said, God, help.
I don't know about Jesus, Messiah, the Bible, Christianity, but show me.
Three months later, I called that man up on the telephone.
He'd give me his business card, and I prayed with him to receive Jesus as my Lord, my Savior, my Messiah.
Yeah.
Praise God.
And I'm eternally grateful for what the Lord has done in my life.
Amen.
It goes to show that it's important that when the Holy Spirit prompts you to plant seeds into somebody's life, even if, like you said, many times before, you said, hey, I don't really want to hear it, to continue to plant those seeds, friends, because eventually someone will come by and water and eventually the harvest will be harvested.
Now, you're a follower of Jesus Christ.
You have a ministry.
It's Larry Stam Ministries, and you're an accomplished author.
I want to talk about some of your books today.
You have a DVD set that teaches this, but this is called Jewish Roots of Christianity.
Right now, you see it there on the screen.
It says, a biblical survey of redemptive history from Genesis to Revelation.
Now, in the modern American church, Jewish roots for Christianity seem to be getting ripped out.
They're saying, absolutely not.
We want nothing to do with the Jews or Israel or, you know, that's an Old Testament thing.
It's no longer a New Testament, new covenant, replacement theology.
We see that running rampant across the United States.
Therefore, we see a large birth across college campuses, as well as just your everyday people of anti-Semitism.
Why do you think we see an acceptance of the rise of anti-Semitism?
Well, we understand Satan wants to destroy the Jewish people.
You know, ever since God birthed the nation of Israel, if you could destroy the Jewish people and destroy Israel, if no Jews know Jesus.
If no Israel, no Messiah.
If no Messiah, no hope, no redemption.
And so we know this is satanically inspired.
People are wanting to destroy the Jewish people because Israel, as we learn from this Bible study and the Jewish roots of Christianity, is central to God's redemptive plan for man.
So this book actually is a 200-page Bible study on the person and work of Jesus the Messiah.
And when we think about quote-unquote Jewish roots, Ricky and Mondo, what we're talking about is our biblical roots.
If you remember the first time Jesus ever spoke in public in Matthew chapter 5, verse 17, the Sermon on the Mount, he said these words.
Jesus said, I have not come to abolish the law and the prophets.
I have come to fulfill.
And as an evangelism equipper, I can tell your audience that I came to faith not by going to church, reading a book, but I came to faith in Jesus Christ through the faithful testimony of people just like you out in the marketplace.
There were people in college shared their testimony with me.
There were people in my workplace during my college years that were sharing the gospel with me.
And finally, I mentioned this man on the airplane, Steve, who was a MetLife insurance salesman back in the day who had a burden to share the gospel message with me.
This, I think, is an important book for Christians.
And, you know, we talk about faith.
Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
And this is an important connecting the dots kind of study.
Perhaps your listeners, perhaps you've heard this pithy catchphrase that packs a punch.
The Old Testament is the New Testament concealed, and the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed.
This is the whole counsel of God.
And so when we study the new covenant, we would say in Hebrew, the bricharasha, the New Testament, we know it as Christians.
When we study it, we also need to also go back and study the Old Testament that connects the dots and helps us put together who Jesus really is and what he came to do.
Amen.
That's important, Mondo, who he is and what he came to do.
So, what was the bridge or the gap that you saw in maybe Christianity as well as in the Jewish traditions that even compelled you to write this?
Because obviously, what you're doing here is you're trying to bridge back modern day Christianity with its original Jewish roots, which we're seeing are trying to be ripped right now.
You've explained it so well, but you saw an issue if you thought there needed to be a book written about it.
Well, I can tell you the book is just a culmination of years walking with the Lord.
When I first came to faith in Jesus Christ and started reading the New Testament, I had an epiphany.
I'm reading Jesus Jewish.
Duh, we get that.
The disciples, Peter, James, and John, the early church Jewish.
I was like, wow, the early church, they were Jewish.
It was before Peter goes to Cornelius in Acts chapter 9, the first Gentile convert we see in the scriptures, we see a Jewish church, so to speak.
Okay.
I started reading, and in one sense, you could say the gospels are simply a Jewish debate among Jewish people about the true identity of a Jewish man, Jesus.
And the story takes place in the Holy Land.
Now, what could be more Jewish than that?
And I thought to myself, What could be more Jewish than that?
I thought to myself, why didn't anybody tell me this before?
And I got so excited about that good news.
The Spirit placed within me a desire to share the gospel with my Jewish people.
And so, Ricky, over the course of time, 10 years after I came to faith in Jesus Christ, the Lord brought me out of coaching and brought me into Christian ministry.
I did two missionary stints with the ministry called Jews for Jesus.
I know you've had touch points with the ministry.
Got to meet Jonathan Kahn while I was in New York City.
I was a missionary in New York City for six and a half years.
One of those stints is a frontline missionary with Jews for Jesus.
And so God has given me a desire to share the gospel with my Jewish people, but really with all people.
When we talk about Jewish roots, when we better understand the gospel, what we're doing is we're building gospel foundations.
And so what I'm doing today is our ministry primarily is a ministry to the body of Christ to help them better understand Jewish roots.
As a missionary to Jewish people, you're trying to make the leap from Jewish to Jesus and connect those dots.
For the church, what we're doing is we're helping Christians go back and get a better understanding, starting with Jesus, our Lord and Savior, and going back and connecting the Jewishness of Jesus.
Because the Old Testament faith is biblical Judaism, which finds its ultimate fulfillment in the new covenant scriptures and the person and work of, we would say in Hebrew, Yeshua HaMashiach, Jesus the Messiah, which might lead us to the question of, well, what about the Judaism of today compared to the Judaism of Jesus' Day, which we might want to talk about?
That's right.
You know, a lot of people know John 3:16.
It's one of the first scriptures that anybody will memorize.
You know, for God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son.
We all know, go teach your children that, make sure they memorize it.
But you actually have a revelation I want you to share with our audience about John chapter 3, verse 14 and 15, and how you say Jesus is actually connecting that back to the Torah.
Oh, absolutely.
And Jesus does this.
Remember, Jesus in the gospels, he's actually speaking primarily to a Jewish audience in the context of the age of the law.
The church is not born.
We don't begin the church age, the age of the Gentiles, right?
Until Acts chapter 2 at Pentecost when the Spirit falls and the church is born.
Jesus is speaking primarily to a Jewish audience.
So when he makes an illustration in speaking to Nicodemus in John chapter 3, we're familiar with John 3:16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever would believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
But previous to that, in verses 14 and 15 of John chapter 3, Jesus will say something, and Nicodemus immediately would have got it.
He would have gone, ah, Torah, I remember that story.
Jesus will say in John chapter 3, verses 14 and 15, and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Nicodemus would have understood this story about the serpent, Jesus referring to the Torah.
In the book of Numbers, chapter 21, the Israelites in rebellion, as they often were.
God sends snakes to bite the people and they're dying.
And they cry out, Moses, help us, as they normally did.
Moses tells God, please.
God instructs Moses to put a bronze serpent on a pole, and whoever looks at that pole will be healed.
Does that ring a bell?
Jesus on the cross, whoever looks upon me will be healed spiritually.
In the Old Testament, Nicodemus would have understood that was that was physical deliverance.
That was physical healing.
Amen.
That was salvation from physical death.
Jesus is now teaching Nicodemus about the new birth, the spiritual birth, and saying, whoever looks upon me and believes, they are delivered from spiritual death.
And that's what, that's one, just one example of many, many, many.
And again, I talk, make a lot more of those connections in the book.
That's right.
I want to encourage you, go get this book.
You can call our number.
It's 1-888-9881-588 or go to jimbakershow.com.
You also have a DVD set of this as well.
If you're maybe not someone who has the time to sit down and read a book, you're saying, I'm not really a book reader.
You also go through this in a DVD set.
So when the people get this, they're going to get five DVD sets right here.
I think this is incredible how you guys have put this together.
And it's going to be wonderful for our viewing audience.
There is.
That is actually 16 25 to 30 minute teachings.
The foundation being the material from the Jewish Roots of Christianity book.
But in this, I get to branch out, share a little bit more anecdotes and stories because I have the liberty during that time.
Amen.
I think it's incredible.
Obviously, I would tell our viewers to get both of these things.
We have an affiliate program with the Southwest Radio Ministries and Friends.
I encourage you.
Go.
You can see that QR code on the screen and see all the different books that they have to offer.
The transformation of the word is real.
And the questions that people are asking today are real, but they're not transforming people.
They're confusing people.
Who is God?
Who is the true Jesus?
What is true Christianity today?
Are we making a mistake looking at this book through an American experience versus a Middle Eastern experience?
And how do we get back to look at this story of the Bible through the Jewish lens, through the Middle East?
Because a lot of it, America has confused the world.
We have brought theology, we have brought ideologies to the world that now the world is demanding for true answers, and yet we're coming up empty-handed because what works here doesn't work over there.
So how do we get back to the origin of scripture?
One of the main principles we need to employ is text context.
To better understand any text of scripture, we need to better understand the context in which it was written.
I'll give you one brief example, foundational for us as believers.
We think about the gospel message, 1 Corinthians 15, verses 3 and 4.
The Apostle Paul will write to the church in Corinth, For I delivered unto you, first of all, that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried and that he rose again on the third day according to the scriptures.
And we have to ask the question of what scriptures was Paul speaking of.
Yeah, he wasn't referring to the 66 books.
That's right.
He was referring to the Old Testament.
That's right.
New Testament Revelation, although letters had been and were being written and disseminated, the entire 27 books of the New Testament Canaan hadn't been compiled yet.
Hebrew Scriptures Context 00:04:20
This would come centuries later.
And my point is this.
The context for the New Testament is the Hebrew scriptures, the Old Testament.
Some religious Jews call it Tanakh, an acronym for the law, the prophets, and the writings.
So text context, if we want to better understand our New Testament, we have to study the Old Testament.
Why?
Because Jesus said, I've not come to abolish that, the law and the prophets, I've come to fulfill.
That's why this study is really important in any study of Jewish roots.
When we think about Jewish roots, I'm talking about biblical Judaism, not the Judaism of the rabbis.
Today we know it is traditional rabbinic Judaism.
Orthodox Judaism is not the religion of the Bible.
The religion of the Old Testament exclusively finds its fulfillment in the person and work of Jesus.
And if you want, I can take a moment to delineate the difference between biblical Judaism and the Judaism of today.
If you want me to, I can unpack it real briefly.
There's a great gulf fixed between the religion of Judaism and the time of Christ and the Judaism today, what we know as Orthodox Judaism or traditional rabbinic Judaism.
And there's a great gulf fixed in two ways.
Number one, whose word's authoritative?
Number two, how do we have our sins forgiven?
First, whose word is authoritative?
Now, you've got to stay with me here.
The Pharisees believe that on Mount Sinai, God gave Moses not only a written Torah, right, the first five books, but they also believe God gave Moses an oral Torah, an addendum, if you will, a supplement.
And this oral tradition was passed from Moses to Aaron through the generations.
And by the time the first century rolls around, this oral tradition had become as authoritative in the religion of Judaism as the Torah and the Old Testament Canaan itself.
And as one example, in Mark chapter 7, I encourage you to open your Bibles.
We don't have time here.
But in Mark chapter 7, the religious leaders will come to Jesus and the disciples and say, hey, why do you guys don't wash according to the tradition of the elders?
The tradition of the elders was this oral tradition that was now as authoritative as the Bible itself.
And Jesus will rebuke them and say, you guys in your teaching is as gospel word, the traditions of men above the commandments of God.
So this tradition of the elders was codified and became the Talmud, the oral law in Judaism.
It is as authoritative in the religion of Judaism today as it was in the first century.
Talmud means learning or instruction.
That's what the word Talmud means.
A religious Jewish person who doesn't know Jesus Christ will not read the Bible without the commentaries, opinions, and teachings of the rabbis found in the oral law.
And this is where much confusion arises.
There's great golf fix number one.
Great golf fix number two is how do we have our sins forgiven?
When God established the nation of Israel, he gave them the altar of sacrifice as the means of atonement.
Leviticus 17, 11 we're familiar with, for the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls.
Well, we know as Christians, remember Jochanon, the cousin of Jesus in John chapter 1, verse 29.
He'll look at Yeshua, Jesus, and say, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
The writer of Hebrews in Hebrews 9, 22 says, without the shedding of blood, what?
There's no forgiveness.
See?
But what happens is when the temple is destroyed in 70 AD, so was the altar where the sacrifices were offered.
And so we had the Messianic community.
They go, well, Jesus said the temple would be destroyed.
We don't need the temple because Jesus, our high priest and Lamb of God, is now our one-time for all sacrifice for sin.
The unbelieving rabbis came up with a magic formula for having our sins forgiven.
Prayer, repentance, and good works.
And this is what religious Jewish people who do not know the Lord believe in today.
Tell Something Important 00:07:52
But this is the problem.
I show up to the judge on Judgment Day and I say to the judge, I'm guilty of A, B, C. Does it matter?
No, I've broken the law.
I'm a lawbreaker.
But here's the deal, judge.
I'm giving alms to the poor.
I've repented of that.
And I'm really, really sorry.
Can I go home now?
Yeah.
No, the judge, in so many words, is going to say the debt must what?
Be paid.
Must be paid.
And so there's a great golf fix.
That's why there are so many Jewish people today confused if they're religious at all, because they're trusting in the words of the rabbis and not the word of God.
But be encouraged.
I want you to know more Jewish people have gotten saved in the past 50 plus years than at any time in history.
In fact, in fact, I heard Joel Rosenberg was speaking to Pastor Greg Laurie a number of months ago, and Joel Rosenberg came out and said he believed there were a million Jewish believers in Jesus Christ, just like myself.
So I want you all to be encouraged.
The Lord's moving.
My people are coming.
Despite whatever.
Yeah, praise God.
Because what we always seem to hear is a very low statistic, maybe like what, one or two, three percent of Israel.
But we've actually met with a gentleman who does a lot of evangelistic work in Israel.
And he says, actually, they don't want to tell you that, you know, obviously the Jewish state, how many people are actually converting because then it would make more converts.
He thinks it's as high as 15 to 20 percent of people who are living in Israel who are actually giving their lives to Jesus right now.
It's a beautiful, beautiful thing.
Yes, and I've also heard, maybe you've heard, I've understand that there's a lot of Orthodox Jewish rabbis in Israel who've come to faith in Messiah Jesus.
Rabbi Kaduri, remember Carl Gallup's book that he wrote a number of years ago, the rabbi who came to Messiah, 300,000 adherents.
He said, Don't open my last will and testament until after I've been gone a year.
They open it up.
He said, I had a vision.
Yeshua, Jesus is the Messiah.
They tried to ploy it off as a hoax, but Carl Gallups did a great job in that book.
That's right.
Telling the truth.
That's right.
This is so beautiful.
What you just taught.
And there's more in the teachings, the DVDs.
Christianity has been taken out of context, and they boiled it down to certain subjects that we have been stuck for the last 40 years.
Yeah, if not longer.
Homosexuality, prosperity, marriage, theology, who's right, who's wrong, the pre-trivers and the mid-triver.
And I want to tell you something.
The gospel is more than just those subjects that have been taken out of context and be labeled as this is what Christianity is.
In just a few moments, you have taught us more about what Christianity is than the last 40 years.
Because we in the church are stuck in an area that we can't seem to get out of.
Yet, the Bible is filled with scriptures that are life-changing, transformative-changing.
And I want to tell you something.
When you begin to stop drinking from the milk and start eating meat, your theology will change.
The perspective of your experience and how you read the Bible changes.
This is why it's so important to have programs like this right now.
And I want to say this: stand with us.
Sow a seed today.
Amen.
I want to tell you something.
Without your sowing of the seed, we can't keep going forward.
Now we have the faith to believe that God will move through you.
It's faith and partnership.
But I want to tell you something.
Your partnership with this ministry allows us to bring teachers like this that are going to bring you the meat, the word.
What does it mean to be a Christian?
What does it mean to serve Jesus?
What does it mean to believe in a God of the Old Testament fulfilled in the New Testament covenant?
Listen, so is C today.
I want you to do this.
Write this number down.
1-888-988-1588.
And allow the Holy Spirit to speak to you right now and ask him, how much do you want me to stand with this ministry every single month?
Your donation, your partnership is what allows this ministry to continue to spread the gospel.
Amen.
But more than that, to create a program called PTL Plus to bring you masterclass teachings where the undivided attention is placed on you to walk you through the expertise of what some of this men and women of God have been taught through the word that you and I need today if we're going to continue in this walk called faith.
Amen.
Do it today.
Ask the Lord to speak to you right now and write that check or make the donation right now and call 1-888-988-1588.
Amen.
And also through our affiliation with Southwest Radio Ministries, we also get to support your ministry and it gets to support our ministry.
I encourage you, go and get this today.
I misspoke earlier.
I said it was five DVDs.
The Jewish roots of Christianity is four.
And I was thinking about the pilgrimage to Zion.
This is a five DVD set.
Give us a quick synopsis.
What is the pilgrimage to Zion?
Pilgrimage to Zion is primarily also a Jewish Roots of Christianity study.
It's a gospel study, but we shot it in location.
Me and my other friends at Southwest Radio, we were there in the summer of 2023.
We were there just about a month before the October 7th attacks.
I have in there a lot of Jewish roots teaching that you'll find in the book, but I also added chapters on the Great Commission, the life of Christ, and also the millennial kingdom, which is an important concept as it relates to the Jewish people in the nation of Israel, to be sure.
So that's a little bit about what you get in the DVD series that shot on location in Israel.
It's wonderful.
Southwest did a phenomenal job in producing it.
Amen.
Friends, we want you to go support Southwest Radio Ministries.
What they're doing is good work.
Friends, we need more people going out there giving the uncensored truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the time that we're living in.
You can go and check out our affiliate program that we have with them.
Go to jimbakershow.com, scan the QR code on the screen.
Go to 1-888-988-1588.
We have a telephone operator who would be willing to talk to you, walk you through the different things that you can order.
And I want to say thank you, Mr. Larry, for being on the broadcast with us today.
What an incredible time we've had.
And friends, don't miss.
We have a few more episodes in this series that we're doing with the Southwest Radio Ministries.
But like Mondo said, we need your support to continue on in broadcasting the gospel of Jesus Christ around the world.
There's been many instances where they said, hey, we would keep you on this network if you just damper down the message just a little bit.
We would put you on this for free if you would just kind of, you know, you can talk about Jesus, but maybe don't talk about sin and cultural issues.
Well, friends, if that means we're here and we're a streaming-based platform, then that's exactly what we're going to do.
We're never going to compromise the gospel of Jesus Christ and we're never going to censor the men and women of God who have a word from the Lord.
Friends, call our number today, 1-888-988-1588.
We'll see you again tomorrow on the Jim Baker Family Show.
God bless you.
Bye-bye.
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