SID: Hello, Sid Roth here with Jonathan Bernis. Welcome to my world where it’s naturally supernatural. Rabbi Bernis and I go back, what is it, 28 years?
JONATHAN: Twenty-eight. We’re closing on thirty.
SID: I remember some of those early years, I would go up to Rochester, New York where he had a Messianic Jewish congregation and we used to pray all day in supernatural languages, and we were zooming. But you know what’s happening right now, and I have never seen you, Jonathan, so excited about this new thing, the restoration of Hebrew with the promises of God on healing. And why is Hebrew so important?
JONATHAN: Well Sid, Hebrew is the language of the scriptures. The very nature of God, the promises of God, are all given to us in the Hebrew language. It just stands to reason that to go back to the Hebrew language will give us the most accurate, powerful means of confessing God’s Word. I believe God answers in all languages. It doesn’t matter. But the Hebrew language, there is some kind of a restoration of the Hebrew language going on, and there is an anointing on Hebrew, actually a glow on the Hebrew language, the L’Shana Kodesh, Tongue of the Prophets.
SID: I believe that every letter of Hebrew has a meaning and when you can break it down, it’s sort of like the regular Bible and the amplified Bible. Its Supernatural. It’s just so much fuller. In fact, what did the ancient rabbis tell us about Hebrew?
JONATHAN: Well the ancient rabbis believed that it was better to pray or to speak in the holy language, L’Shana Kodesh, the Holy Tongue, even if you didn’t understand it than any other language. And I don’t want to get too mystical, Sid. But the ancient rabbis, even the rabbis today teach that the Hebrew has certain harmonics.
SID: Sounds.
JONATHAN: Sounds that actually create, that, when the Lord created the world, the heavens and the earth, He created them by the spoken word. And that there’s power, we already know there’s power in the spoken word. But in the Hebrew language in particular it is considered the holy language. And there’s just tremendous power, I believe, both in confession and when you go back to the original Hebrew. I’m very excited.
SID: I know you are. Actually, you found out how important it is to confess or meditate on God’s Word when you were a rabbi in a congregation. Tell me about one of the members it helped.
JONATHAN: You were actually commenting on it at the beginning of the program. The Lord really dealt with me about bringing true change. I had so much counseling with a small congregation, just repetitive sessions where nothing changing, and the Lord really spoke to me clearly about dedicating weeks aside for fasting and prayer. And you actually used to come…
SID: I looked forward to it.
JONATHAN: …to Rochester and experience these times of fasting and prayer. The problem is we’re either fasting or praying and we don’t couple them together. And I took these times, where I, designated times where I asked people from the congregation to actually take vacation time and we devoted nine hours a day to corporate prayer and worship. And it was out of those times that the power of confessing the Word of God became reality to me. I finally saw it. Finally, that coupled with going to meetings together sponsored by Kenneth Hagan. Kenneth Hagan was a tremendous influence in my life, and the power of confessing the Word of God. And one story I will tell. I had this woman who had been suffering from depression for 20-plus years. She had gone, just like the woman with the issue of blood, she had been to doctors and therapists, and you could see the visible depression all over her. And I told her after counseling ineffectively with her, “I want you to start to confess the Word of God. I want you to take an hour a day Sid Roth, or in the beginning a half hour a day.” And I gave her scriptures: “He who the Son sets free is free indeed.” “Greater is He that is in me than He that is in the world.” Those kinds of scriptures; “We’re more than conquerors through Him who loved us and strengthened us…” And it only took her a couple of weeks. She came back to me. I knew she didn’t have to tell me she had been delivered of depression. As far as I know, she’s been delivered ever since. It was a whole new life for her because she had confessed the Word of God. “Faith cometh by hearing…hearing by the Word of God.” It had finally seeped into her spirit and brought life.
SID: Tell me about the meaning of the word “meditate”.
JONATHAN: Well if you look at the word “meditate” in Hebrew, it’s a difference concept than the Christian idea of meditation. It’s the Hebrew word “hagah”. In Christian meditation we’re reflecting on a scripture. We’re contemplating that scripture, silent contemplation with our mind. But “hagah”, the Hebrew concept, is contemplation with the mouth. Hagah literally means “to talk, to utter, to mutter”. And that’s what God said to Joshua. In Joshua 1:8, Joshua is being prepared to take the children of Israel into the Promised Land, the baton is being handed from Moses, the great leader Moses, to Joshua, and God exhorts him and says, “Joshua, be strong.
Be of good courage. Don’t worry. I will be with you. But if you want to succeed you need to meditate on my word day and night. You need to utter it, keep it always on your lips, hagah. And so he tells Joshua that in order to be successful and prosperous, that’s what it says in the Hebrew, if you do this, if you hagah, if you confess my word, keep it on your lips, you will be prosperous and successful. And I’m wondering how many watching want to be prosperous, want to be more successful. Well the clue is in Joshua 1:8, hagah. The Lord tells Joshua and He’s telling us today, if you want to be prosperous, if you want to be fruitful, if you want to be successful, you need to get the Word of God into your heart. How do you do that? By keeping it on your lips, by speaking it, uttering it, muttering it.
SID ROTH: What Jonathan is teaching is so fantastic, the power of confessing God’s Word, especially His promises. But how about confessing His promises in Hebrew? Jewish people had a problem when they came to the United States of America. Most of them did not speak Hebrew. So the reform movement developed the most simplistic way of people being able to speak the Hebrew language. We’re going to have a demonstration of it when we come back, and you’ll be speaking Hebrew. Don’t go away.
