Volume 72, Issue 1 ________________________________Bible Prophecy Ministry



The Jews and their King in Prophecy


The Jews and their King in Prophecy:

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by Darrell G. Young

 

     The recent release of the movie “the Passion of the Christ” has once again sensationalized the controversial subject of the Jews and their historical relationship with Jesus. I can think of no other subject that for century after century can still kindle such an immediate firestorm of controversy like the role of the Jews in Bible prophecy and the debate pertaining to the King of the Jews. Of course history has been very unkind and unsympathetic to the Jews since the days of Jesus. The Jews have been subjected to unspeakable atrocities in the name of religion. Much of that despicable record revolves around a perpetuated ideology of anti-Semitism and the charge that the Jews were the killers of the Christ. Satan has had a field day for centuries in casting the Jews as the cursed of God.

    According to a poll conducted by the European Union in the fall of 2003, found that 60 percent of EU citizens identified Israel as the world's greatest threat to peace. That is an astounding statistic when you stop to consider the fact that there are so many terrorist sponsoring states in the world such as Iran, Syria and North Korea. The rising anti-Semitism and perception of Israel as the biggest threat to world peace is all the more ominous considering the fact that the Bible indicates that the Antichrist will likely emerge from within the European arena. Recently Malaysian President Mahathir Mohammad addressed the Organization of Islamic States and portrayed the Jews as blood-drinking monsters that conspire to rule the world through proxy leaders. He also said that the only way there could ever be peace in the world is for the community of nations (UN) to exterminate the Jewish nation. Adolph Hitler and Haj Al-Amin Husseini and their 1940’s scheme of the Final Solution stand out as the ultimate example of the depraved designs of the anti-Semitic venom of the Great Red Dragon. Yet in spite of that relatively recent depraved example of history, the world today is rapidly growing more and more anti-Semitic.

    Why the Jews? Why do they always get singled out for persecution? And why in the world is tiny little Israel viewed as the greatest threat to peace in the world? It just makes no sense apart from Bible prophecy. It is because the world hates Israel. It is an enmity that has evolved from the strategic mindset of Satan since the post Edenic announcement of God that the seed of Israel would one day destroy the seed of the Serpent. Only someone blinded by anti-Semitism could deny it. We only need to look at the UN voting record when it comes to condemning Israel. Israel has come under more UN condemnations than all other states in the world combined. That includes more times than all the Islamic-Arab states and their multitude of terrorist networks combined, and every time the UN votes on an Israeli issue, the vote is always four against the rest of the world, those four being Israel itself, Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and the United States. The secular world cannot offer an explanation for its venomous, knee-jerk hatred of the Jews and the State of Israel, but the Bible can. The universal hatred of Israel and the Jews is the ideological cyanide tablet of Satan.

    At its root, anti-Semitism is simply the embodiment of the pagan realm against the God of Israel, and His relationship with His people. The god of this world has corrupted the mindset of the nations of the world to hate Israel because Israel is the signpost of his defeat. The Jews by virtue of being the progenitor of the laws of Moses, the concept of sin, the vehicle for delivery of the Bible, and the benefits of the Cross is an affront to god of this world. And the world has bought into that natural enmity. The world through anti-Semitism spits on the Jews as the Christ killers, yet they long inwardly to spit on Israel because God used that nation as the Christ-giver!

 

The Curse of the Jews

    The Jews are not a curse upon this world, and never have been, and they are not a hopelessly lost people striving against a curse. In reality the Jewish people have been the greatest blessing in the world. Furthermore, the Jews and the nation of Israel not only have given the world its greatest gifts, but they are destined to become the vehicle for the greatest blessing the world has ever known. Yet in spite of their miraculous and wondrous contributions to the civilization of mankind, Israel and the Jews have endured the most sadistic hatred in the world. The Jews have contributed more to global society than any other people on earth. More Jews have won Nobel Prizes for advances in science than any other identifiable religious or ethnic group in the world. Although Jews account for a fraction of a percentage of the earth's population, they account for 22% of the Nobel Prizes awarded for scientific advancements since 1901. 

    That hatred is not of God though, and it is not inflicted upon them by God. Anti-Semitism or the hatred of the Jews is a conspiratorial design of Satan. God simply foreknew the blessing and curses ramifications of history (Deuteronomy 11:26) and warned the Jews beforehand, but alas the Jews chose unwisely, and became a special target of the wrath of the evil one. The Jews have become intertwined betwixt the great cosmic conspiracy of the nations under the authority of Satan and God’s providence over Zion.

     Thus, Israel has become a byword, a proverb, a people of scorn and derision, and an astonishment among the nations in the world because they forsook the Lord God and went whoring after the gods (Satan) of the world. But then again, what nation is not guilty of the same offence? Indeed every nation is guilty of following after false gods. But it was only Israel among the nations of human civilization that was a nation established by the great I AM, and was established for His namesake.

 

   Deuteronomy 28:37 And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all nations whither the Lord shall lead thee.

 

    The Hebrew word for astonishment is shammah. It means to become a desolate waste held in utter contempt and implicated in consternation because it once held such a wondrous hope. The term “byword” comes from the Hebrew word “sheniynah” which means to become subjected to the taunts and ridicule of the world.

 

Israel Disdained its Priest/Judges/Prophets and Sought a King

    For many years Israel was ruled by judges and had no king. (Judges 21:25) But as the days of Samuel grew to an end, and his sons abused the offices of judges, the people of Israel inquired of Samuel to beseech the Lord to appoint a king over Israel. The Lord’s reaction to Israel’s request for a king is striking and also forms the backdrop of a prophetic paradigm.


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    1 Samuel 8:4-8 Then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together, and came to Samuel unto Ramah, And said unto him, Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations. But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the Lord. And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this day, wherewith they have forsaken me, and served other gods, so do they also unto thee.

 

     The Lord informs Samuel that the request by the Jews for a king to reign over them instead of the priestly judges that had been ordained and appointed by God since the days of Joshua would be permitted. Israel, casting its eyes on its idolatrous neighbors around them began to esteem the idea of having a King to rule over them. Whereas Samuel foresaw the entrapments of a human king reigning over Israel, the Lord nevertheless confided to Samuel that Israel was in reality rejecting the idea of having Yahweh reign over them. So the Lord allowed Israel to crown a King of the Jews! The providential wisdom of the Lord foresaw the day when Israel would reject the King (Jesus) that God would send unto them, and even beyond that occasion to the time when the Jews would accept a King that would come in his own name. That “willful king” (Daniel 11:36) will be none other than the Antichrist. 

 

    John 5:43 I (Jesus) am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, (Antichrist) him ye will receive.  

  

    God foresaw Israel’s tendency to desire a king even before the Jews crossed the Jordan and entered into the Promised Land. In Deuteronomy 17:14-17 the Lord advised the Jews to never choose a king that is not their brother. (a stranger or non Jew, or a client of foreign rulers) The Lord also advised the Jews to guard against establishing a kingship that turned aside from the laws of God or that sought to multiply material riches unto themselves. This Divine advice would haunt the Jews later in the days of King Herod and served to set a prophetic landmark for some fateful words from the Jewish High Priest. (We have no King but Caesar!…..John 19:15)

These haunting words of the Jewish High Priest echo down the corridors of time over the last 20 centuries like a reverberating hoof-beat, and hold ominous lessons for the world today.

   

    In God’s grand providential plan of the ages, the Lord had foreordained that there would be two specific occasions that he would present the Jews an opportunity to accept the promise of the prophesied Kingdom. The first such occasion happened on Christ’s first visitation to the Jews 2000 years ago. The prophets in Isaiah 10:2-3 and Jeremiah 8:12, 23:8-12 depict in the Old Testament the very scenario that Jesus presented to the Jews when he came to them 750 years later for his presentation as their King.

 

    Luke 19:11-14 And as they heard these things, he added and spake a parable, because he was nigh to Jerusalem, and because they thought that the kingdom of God should immediately appear. He said therefore, A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return. And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come. But his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us.

 

    Unfortunately the Jews of the 1st century were unwilling to have Jesus as their King. Jesus had averted for 2-1/2 years being cast as a potential king unto Israel until all of a sudden, just prior to Passover week of the 3rd year of his mission, he arranged to secure a donkey to ride into Jerusalem and present himself as a king. Just weeks after raising Lazarus from the dead, Jesus rode into Jerusalem and received a glorious welcome from the multitudes gathered along the path. The event has become known in Biblical history as the Triumphal Entry.

 

    Luke 19:37-38 And when he was come nigh, even now at the descent of the mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen; Saying, Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord: peace in heaven, and glory in the highest.

 

   The Jews that met Jesus on that Palm Sunday 1972 years ago hailed Jesus as the King of the Jews. The Jewish Pharisees that were among the crowd that day rebuked them and cautioned Jesus against such a claim of royalty. But Jesus rebuked the Pharisees and remarked that had the believing Jews of the country not hailed him as King that the very stones would have cried out on that day.


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    Unfortunately the anti-Semitism that would arise in succeeding centuries would place the blame for Jesus crucifixion on the Jews as a people. But the real truth of the matter is that there were many of the Jews who did accept Jesus as King. (John 11:45 Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him.) (see also John 2:23, 8:30, 10:42, 11:42, 12:11) Many of the Jews did believe in Jesus and thought he was their long awaited Messiah and King. The Jews as a race have received a bum rap because of Christ’s crucifixion. In fact the Pharisees and the religious rulers over the Jews feared that Jesus was gaining too many converts and presented a grave threat to the financial and legal status of the Sanhedrin as a client estate under Rome. (John 11:47-48 Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? for this man doeth many miracles. If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation.)

     So it was actually the ecclesiastical hierarchy of the Jewish Sanhedrin that conspired and plotted to hand Jesus over to Pilate. (John 1:11 He came unto his own, and his own received him not.) Pilate was bewildered about what to do about Jesus. He finally reiterated the charge against Jesus to the High Priest and the Sanhedrin, “What will ye then that I shall do unto him whom ye call the King of the Jews?” The Chief Priest of the Jews words thus became an indictment against the whole of House of Israel, for it was he as High Priest who rejected Pilate’s superscription over Christ’s cross. (John 19:21 Then said the chief priests of the Jews to Pilate, Write not, The King of the Jews; but that he said, I am King of the Jews.)

   Jesus own statement to the Chief Priest, “I AM”-“King of the Jews,” was emphatic and it should have caused the high priest to shake in his sandals, rather than rent his vesture in disgust. It was a name whereby God had introduced himself to the children of Israel.

    Matthew 22:15, 27:1, Mark 3:6, 14:1, Luke 22:22, John 5:18, 7:1, 30, 39 and John 11:51-54 are among the scriptures that detail how the Jewish Pharisees, Sadducees, and Sanhedrin conspired and plotted with the Herodian political camp to entreaty the Roman authorities to put to death a King whom the Jews would not accept. Sadly, many of the unknowledgeable Jews of the day which had gathered in Jerusalem for Passover ended up cooperating with the elitist Jewish propaganda machine and joined in the demonic cry to crucify Jesus for claiming to be the King of the Jews. The Jews, caught in a Devilish snare have suffered ever since.


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   Matthew 27:24-25 When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it. Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children.

 

The Jews in Prophecy

     Few Biblical studies are as exciting as a complete review of the Jews in prophecy. The Jews are a key focal point throughout the Bible and more significantly in prophecy. All of the prophets were Jewish. The Holy Scriptures reveal that the Jews will be the object of both God's wrath (Jeremiah 30:7) and His grace (Zechariah 13:1) in the end times. The panorama of prophecy that relates to the Jews is breathtaking. Through the history of the Jews we can glean through God’s providential plan as it applies to the past, to the present, and even into the future. God’s redemptive work through Israel and its modern remnant demonstrates God's love and grace as nothing else does except for the Cross itself. The Apostle Paul yearned for the salvation of the Jews. (Romans 10:1 Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.) And this should be the attitude of Christians toward all people, and especially the Jews. That is the very opposite attitude that is propagated by anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, and in fact is a service of Satan. Let's take a look at the incredible prophecies that pertain to the Jewish people, and let's begin with the prophecies that have already been fulfilled.

·        Israel has been chosen by God to embody the Revelation of the King! This is the reason for

John’s recording of the book of The Revelation of Jesus Christ, the book that finalized God’s prophetic word to the world. Israel was not called to conquer other nations, but to enlighten humanity the world over to the knowledge of the one true God and to be availed God’s wondrous salvation through the King of the Jews. Irrespective of the Jews failure to recognize their King 2000 years ago, it has always been God’s Divine plan to restore the Jewish nation, and to plant it back in its Promised Land so that it can fulfill its destiny of being a holy people unto the Lord. In the final analysis, Israel will come around to accepting Jesus Christ as not only the King of the Jews, but that the whole world may accept him as King of Kings!

 

The Great Jewish Dispersion

    We all know a great deal about the Jewish Diaspora today, but did you know that God forecast the worldwide scattering of the Jews over 1500 years before it happened? The Jews were warned repeatedly by God that they would be scattered worldwide if they were not faithful to their law-land covenant with God. We only need to go back and consider the multitude of forewarnings in Deuteronomy through Moses, the lawgiver himself: For instance: "The Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other.” (Deuteronomy 4:27, 28:64, 32:64)

(see also Leviticus 26:33, Psalms 106:27, Jeremiah 9:16, 13:24, Ezekiel 5:2,10,12, Ezekiel 12:14,15, Ezekiel 20:23, 22:15) 

 

The Sword of Persecution Has Followed the Jews

   The Lord God also forewarned the Jews that they would be persecuted wherever they were scattered. (Deuteronomy 28:65 And among those nations you shall find no rest, and there shall be no resting place for the sole of your foot; but there the Lord will give you a trembling heart, failing of eyes, and despair of soul.) (Ezekiel 5:17, 11:8) The word consumption (shachepheth) means to be emaciated by the sword of affliction. (Deuteronomy 28:21-22  The Lord shall make the pestilence cleave unto thee, until he have consumed thee from off the land, whither thou goest to possess it. The Lord shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning, and with the sword, and with blasting, and with mildew; and they shall pursue thee until thou perish.)

 

The Desolation of the Jewish Land and the Temple

    God prophesied through his prophets that after the Jewish dispersion that even their heritage of the Promised Land would become "desolate" and their cities would become "waste." (Leviticus 26:33). Moses stated it more graphically when he said, "the foreigner who comes from a distant land will say, 'All its land is brimstone and salt, a burning waste, unsown and unproductive, and no grass grows in it" (Deuteronomy 29:22-23). The final straw regarding Israel’s desolation and the destruction of its Temple came when Jesus alluded to the fact that its house would be left unto them desolate until they learned to cry out for Him, their true King on the Day of the Lord. (Luke 23:35) (Zechariah 12:10, Isaiah 40:9-11) Once a land flowing with milk and honey, the Promised Land became a wasteland, but even that ruinous condition is being reversed with God’s miraculous 20th century recovery of the Jewish remnant. That is just one more fact that points to the culminating work of God to bring about a complete restoration between the Jews and their rightful King, Jesus Christ!

 

The Divine Preservation of the Jews

   But God in His marvelous grace promised that He would preserve the Jews as a separate people during even during their worldwide scattering and wanderings. (See Isaiah 66:22; Jeremiah 30:11; 31:35-37.) Isaiah puts it in a colorful way. He says the Lord could no more forget Israel than a mother could forget her nursing child (Isaiah 49:15). He then adds that God cannot forget Israel because He has them literally tattooed on the palms of His hands! (Isaiah 49:16). Listen to this conversation between Isaiah and the Lord; (Isaiah 49:5-6 And now, saith the Lord that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, Though Israel be not gathered, (2700 years ago) yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength. And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.) God has obstructed Satan’s desire (anti-Semitism) to annihilate the Jews and labored to preserve a remnant of the Jewish people throughout all of history. Sadly, many Jews cannot see that fact, and still more sad news is the fact that many so-called Christians have acted in behalf of the opposite design will of God.

 

Some Ongoing Prophecies for the Jews

   We are privileged to live in an age when God is fulfilling many of his promises to the Jews. What a testimony this is to the fact that God is alive and well, that God is on His throne and in control, and that God is faithful to His promises. Having handed Jesus over to the Romans to be crucified, the Jews found themselves in the tragic position of opposing God’s spiritual movement which became the foundation for the faith of Christianity. Though the name of Jesus has for centuries been the name above every name for Christians, it has been a name that Jews have tried to eradicate from their memory. Ironically, the dispersion of the Jews from the land of Israel led to their residence in lands that became predominantly Christian. That demographic fact has had good and bad ramifications for the Jews, for in far too many cases the Jews have endured their harshest persecutions from misguided and corrupted religious teachings taught in the name of Christ.

    Nevertheless, God has preserved a remnant of Jewry from the sadistic wrath of anti-Semitism and restored a portion of the Jews to the land.

 

The Replanting of the Jewish Remnant

    The Old Testament prophets promise repeatedly that the day will come when God will re-gather the Jews to Palestine (see Isaiah 11:10-12 and Ezekiel 36:22-28). This remarkable re-gathering of the Jews from the four-corners of the earth has occurred over the last few decades. The events of World War I actually played out geo-politically to prepare an open space in the Promised Land for the Jews by uprooting the Ottoman Empire from possession of the land. Later during the 1940’s and the Holocaust of World War II, a dastardly scheme of Satan to eradicate the Jews in Europe and the Middle East backfired on the forces of Hell as God used those events to prepare the Jews for implantation in the land. The Holocaust provided the impetus to Jewish Zionism by motivating them to realize that they needed a homeland to call their own if for no other reason than find a way to not be left subjected to the devises of other nations.

 

The Jewish Nation Sprouts in the Land

    The prophets stated that when the Jews were re-gathered, the nation of Israel would be re-established. This occurred on May 14, 1948. This is the landmark cornerstone prophetic event of our age, and stands as the signal post for the countdown of the Last Days. It is an event forecast in the Bible that had been pointed to for hundreds of years by the prophets of Israel. Even though the rebirth of the nation of Israel received much scoffing and ridicule by the replacement theology of those who did not believe that Israel would ever exist again as a nation, and believed that Israel was cast aside forever by God, it has happened. To whom do we give this miraculous credit? It is certain that Satan would never submit to be the architect for the rebirth of Israel, for his demise has always been tied to the emergence of the Jewish nation.

 

   Isaiah 66:6-8 A voice of noise from the city, a voice from the temple, a voice of the Lord that rendereth recompence to his enemies. Before she travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child. Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children.

 

The Reclamation of the Land

    God also promised that after the re-establishment of the nation that the land would begin to bloom once again (Isaiah 35:1-7; Joel 2:21-26). As Ezekiel put it, people would one day exclaim: "This desolate land that was desolate has become like the Garden of Eden!"

 

    Ezekiel 36:34-36 And the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by. And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become fenced, and are inhabited. Then the heathen that are left round about you shall know that I the Lord build the ruined places, and plant that that was desolate: I the Lord have spoken it, and I will do it.

 

    And that is exactly what has transpired since the rebirth of the nation of Israel. Tourists today can visit a land that is quickly once again becoming a land of milk and honey. Over 300 million trees have been planted in the past century. The average annual Rainfall has increased 450 percent. The former malaria infested swamps have been converted into cultivated land. Water from the Sea of Galilee has been channeled to the deserts, causing them to bloom. Israel has become an exporter of agricultural goods to the whole world, and an economic envy to her Arab neighbors.

 

The Jewish-Hebrew Language Restored

    When the Jews were scattered worldwide in the first century, they gradually ceased speaking the pure Hebrew language. The Jews who settled in Europe developed a language called Yiddish (a sort of combination of Hebrew and German). The Jews in the Mediterranean basin mixed Hebrew with Spanish to produce a language called Ladino. The prophet Zephaniah implied a time would come when the Hebrew language would be revived (Zephaniah 3:9 For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve him with one consent.) Today the Israelis once again speak Biblical Hebrew. It is the only example in history of the resurrection of a dead language. The man responsible for the restoration of the original Hebrew language to the Jews was Eliezer Ben Yehuda, and he did it just in time for the restoration of the Jews to the land. The heart of “one consent” to worship God will come about when the Jews finally recognize their King, and that event is imminent.

 

The Jewish (Jacob’s) Time of Trouble is on the Horizon

    With the reconstitution of Israel as a nation once again now a reality, the world geo-political stage is about set for the Jews to once again be confronted with another decision for its choice for a King. Since its 1948 statehood reality, Israel has been undergoing a religious and political metamorphosis that will eventually lead to the Jewish nation once again being entreated by the complex dynamic of the presentation of the Messiah.

    The Messiah’s second visitation is highly anticipated in the arena of the supernatural. Satan is keenly aware that his conniving scheme of 2000 years ago to entangle the Jews with the Romans to crucify the King of the Jews was foreseen by God, and that God literally turned Satan’s temporary glee into the greatest accomplishment in history, the sacrificial salvation of the Lamb.

    Satan's hatred of the Jews takes many forms. But his actions are always directed at derailing God's kingdom destiny for Israel and the Jews. The devil's third temptation of Jesus struck directly at the establishment of the Davidic and Messianic Kingdom. (Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; "And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. "Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. "Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him) (Matthew 4:8-11).

    Today, having failed to block the transitional restoration of the Jews back into Israel, Satan is preparing to present a False Messiah unto Israel. And God will allow the Jewish people once again to choose whom they would have to reign over them.

    The Time of Jacob’s Trouble looms on the horizon as evidenced by current events. Israel and the Jews by entering into a league of security with a false Messiah will experience an unparalleled period of tribulation (Deuteronomy 4:30). It will be a seven-year long span during which two-thirds of the Jews will perish (Zechariah 13:8-9). The Divine purpose will be to soften the hearts of the Jewish remnant so that they will finally accept Jesus as their Messiah. (A remnant of the Jews will "look upon Him whom they have pierced" and will accept Him as Lord and Savior (Zechariah 12:10; Romans 11:1-6, 25-29).

 

Israel, the Jews and the Problem of the Messiahship of Jesus

     The relationship of the Jewish people to Jesus of Nazareth is unquestionably the most unique and misunderstood historical phenomenon known to mankind. Jesus was a Jew. His Disciples and earliest followers were Jews and the Messianic movement which Jesus founded sprouted in the Jewish land which was the only land and people in the world that held the Messianic hope.    

    The opposition which Jesus encountered in the land of Israel during his short three-year ministry came about primarily because he represented a threatening menace to the profit minded and power hungry priesthood and the status quo temporal positions of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Clinging to minor civil power just beneath the upper echelon of Roman authority, the Jewish Sanhedrin schemed to typecast Jesus as political usurper and thus incorporated the Empire of Rome to execute him as a conspiratorial rebel. The rank and file of the Jewish people then became disillusioned with Jesus because they saw him as failing to usher in the Kingdom for the Jews. But the failure of the Jews to recognize their king has served to avail to the rest of the world the testimony of the king of the creation.

    The Jewish association with Jesus today is strictly one from a historical concept. There is simply no room for Jesus in the religion of Judaism, just as there was no room for him in that Bethlehem inn 2000 years ago. Modern Judaism is very skeptical of Christian evangelicals who seek to proselytize to Jews. To the Jewish nation Jesus cannot be even remotely perceived as the Messiah because the Jews, far from realizing a kingdom, have suffered greatly from many nations who supposedly work in the name of Jesus. In Judaism the concept of a personal Messiah was always inextricably interwoven with the national restoration of the Jewish people. Jesus has been and is still seen by the Jews today as a miserable failure in this regard, and therefore they view him as a false Messiah. The Orthodox Jews still anticipate that the true Messiah has yet to come.

    To the Jews, the redemption associated with the Messiah always meant the re-establishment of an independent Jewish State in the land of Israel. This hope is evident in the Jewish Prayer book. No Jewish prayer service is complete without a petition to God for the salvation of Israel. Jews have prayerfully collected at the base of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem for centuries to beseech God to restore their kingdom. Alas Israel was recovered as a State for Jews in 1948, but still there is no kingdom and no Messiah, but only a continuous fight for survival. This present reality however does not mean the King of the Jews has abandoned Israel. But rather it portends that the time is quickly transpiring for the culmination of the outworking of the Divine plan between Gentile and Jewish histories that will climax with Jesus returning unto Israel and establishing his Kingdom throughout the whole world.

    While the Jews were dispersed and Israel ceased to be a nation in 70AD, the King of the Jews thus turned his attention to the Gentile world. The “times of the Gentiles” is the Biblical term that King Jesus himself alluded to in Luke 21:24 to describe the ensuing days of his absence in which Gentile history would be grafted into the blessings of Israel through the mission of the Church.

 

God's Infinite Love for Israel and the Jews

     The loving-kindness and faithfulness of God in keeping His promises to the Jewish people should be a source of encouragement to all Christians. As we watch God fulfill promises which He made to the Jewish people thousands of years ago, we can be absolutely certain that He will be faithful to fulfill all the promises He has also made to the Church.

 

The Passion of The Christ   

     The triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem was His proclamation of His Messiah-ship, and His inheritance as the King of Israel. The passion of Christ 2000 years ago was to submit himself to the Roman Cross, for he knew that the complete victory for all mankind over evil and the stain of sin passed through his own sacrifice. Through that propitiation, Christ has called all men to join his kingdom.

     As the pendulum of history swings full circle to the drama of the second visitation of Jesus the Christ to the Jews, Israel once again stands in the crosshairs of destiny. Unbeknownst to the Jews, Satan has conspired among the nations to once again bring about the geo-political stage for Israel to once again to be beholden to another beastly Caesar for their peace and safety.

    The haunting and infamous words of Caiaphas still hang like a curse over Israel. We have no King but Caesar! But Jesus shall go forth to fight against his foes on that day, and he shall smite the nations gathered together under the Antichrist around Israel with the fierceness of his wrath.

 

    John 19:14-16 And it was the preparation of the Passover, and about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King! But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar. Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified. And they took Jesus, and led him away.

 

     Mark 14:60-62 And the high priest stood up in the midst, and asked Jesus, saying, Answerest thou nothing? what is it which these witness against thee? But he held his peace, and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked him, and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

 

    But this time around Jesus isn’t coming to submit himself to a Roman Cross, nor will He allow the Jews to conspire with the political powers of the world to hand him over to be slaughtered. In fact, Jesus is coming to destroy the armies of the Antichrist-Caesar, and to save Israel. This is the event that all of history has pointed to. Whereas Satan offered Jesus Christ the adulation of the kingdoms of this world 2000 years ago if only Jesus would consent to worship him, when Jesus comes to Israel this time, all the kingdoms of this world shall become the dominion of Jesus forever.

    Multitudes and throngs of converted Jews and Christians will follow Jesus into the Holy City of Jerusalem crying, and saying, Hosanna; Blessed is he (Jesus) that cometh in the name of the Lord and blessed be the kingdom of our father David, that cometh in the name of the Lord: Hosanna in the highest.

    Jesus is the King of the Jews, and his parting statement to Caiaphas and Rome stand as a words of warning. (Mark 14:61-62 But he held his peace, and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked him, and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

   

    Jesus response to Caiaphas is unsettling words to all who oppose the King of the Jews!

 

 

Focus on Jerusalem Prophecy Ministry

March 2004

Darrell G. Young

 

 



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