One time, a ruler was pontificating with an advisor. He asked if there was a God, what would be the proof of his existence?
The advisor responded thoughfully, "The existence of the Jews".
In the Beginning
The descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, nowadays referred to as the Jews, were a unique people about which God said he would bless and all nations through them would be blessed:
The Lord had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.
I will make you a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you". (Genesis 12;1-3)
God promised Abram that he would become a great nation, that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars and as the sands of the sea. God changed the name of Abram to "Abraham", meaning father of a multitude (of nations).
God also promised Abram that he would grant him land that would be an inheritance to his offspring (Genesis 12:7; ratified through blood covenant in Genesis 15). The land would be an inheritance to the descandants of Abraham, through his offspring Isaac and Jacob, forever. God ratified this covenant in a unilateral blood covenant while Abraham was asleep. This is to indicate that God Himself would bear the brunt of the covenant and make sure it would be fulfilled (after all, Abraham was in a deep sleep when God did this. See Genesis 15:9-21).
God also prophesied to Abram that his descendants would be slaves in a nation not their own (Egypt) for 400 years. Moreover, through later prophecies in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, God also told the Israelites that they would be taken captive and scattered to the far corners of the earth and into every nation for serving idols rather than serving the Lord their God who brought them up out of Egypt and out of slavery. This did indeed happen.
But here is the catch: God also promised to bring them back from captivity and into their own land, the land God swore to their father Abraham. God made many promises to Israel which have been fulfilled in history.
No other nation or people group on the face of the earth has existed that was decimated by their enemies, then were re-gathered to become a people group again. No other group was taken over by their enemies, scattered to the four corners of the earth, then came back to their land with their language restored! This could only be described as a miracle.
The definition of a miracle is: any amazing or wonderful occurrence; a marvellous event manifesting a supernatural act of a divine agent.
The fact that God prophecied the future over a period of thousands of years through various people and that many of those prophecies have already come to fruition is quite miraculous. It declares that there is One author of the scriptures, one who is supernatural and who exists outside of time. Furthermore, the way those scriptures are arranged in the Hebrew language to where certain messages are encoded beneath the text (and still make sense at the surface of the text), indicates that the authorship of the Word of God itself is none other than the One who causes all things to be fulfilled.
Moreover, the regathering of the Jews into their own land and the restoration of them as a people is nothing short of a miracle.
The fact that my son is one of those physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is nothing short of a miracle. For all intents and purposes, my son should not be living on the face of this earth! If evil men had their way, my son's ancestors would have been decimated long ago through not one, but two captivites, a slew of wars, and countless acts of persecution throughout the centuries (remember the Crusades, and the Spanish Inquisition?- all attempts at wiping out the Jews).
During World War II, as many as 1/3 of world Jewry were destroyed in the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps, when Hitler attempted to wipe off every Jew from the face of the earth. They were stripped of their citizenship, women were raped, and Jews were locked in their synagogue with it set on fire whilst their enemies marched around singing Christian songs. I seriously doubt those people were real Christians. The Jews were imprisoned, many of them, an estimated 6 million total were gassed and burned in the crematoriums. Unspeakable horrors happened to this people. All because (and only because) they were Jewish. Even still, God caused the Jews to survive and not only survive, but come back to...you guessed it, the Land of Canaan (modern-day Israel) and become a nation. This too was prophesied thousands of years before it happened:
"Before she goes into labor, she gives birth; before the pains come upon her, she delivers a son. Who has ever heard of such things? Can a country be born in a day or a nation be brought forth in a moment? Yet no sooner is Zion in labor than she gives birth to her children" (Isaiah 66:8) (emphasis mine).
When was the fulfillment of this prophecy? On May 14, 1948, after Israel had been scattered to the four corners of the earth, Israel the nation was re-born! She was recognized by the United Nations and she was once again her own sovereign nation.
From that point on, and up til this day, millions of Jewish people have emigrated (the term is to make 'aliyah') to the land of Israel, the nation. This is in fulfillment of many prophecies, including Jeremiah 16:14-16-
"However, the days are coming", declares the Lord, when men will no longer say, 'As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the Israelities up out of Egypt', but they will say, 'As surely as the Lord lives who brought the Israelites up out of the land of the north and out of all the countries where he had banished them'. For I will restore them to the land I gave their forefathers".
This is the scripture the Lord gave me after an intense time of prayer during which He showed me the work I would be doing in my then-upcoming trip to Russia. While on my face, the Lord showed me a vision of a map of Russia and myself behind a group of people- Jews- pushing them up north, over Finland, and south into Israel. I said in my heart, I have never heard of such a thing. I asked the Lord to confirm this to me in His Word if it was true. I opened my Bible. It fell open to Jeremiah 16 and my eyes fell on verses 14-16. The land of the north, Russia, is the land referenced in the above passage, for the land of Russia is directly north of Israel. The Lord had shown me we would be routing Jews up out of St. Petersburg, Russia, by way of Finland, south to Israel, their new home.
In October of 1998, we did just that. Now, dozens of Jews are living safely in Israel, due to the work we did in Russia.
What a profound way for me to see Bible prophecy coming true before my very eyes!!
Implications
You know why I think the truths I have just explained to you are so far-reaching and impacting, even unto our own lives right now?
Because it is further proof that God means what he says. He has kept his word concerning the Jewish people. He will keep his word concerning your life and my life as well.
Either God is right and true and He will keep all of His word, as the fulfillment of these prophecies indicates, or he is a liar and is untrustworthy. If you say that God is true and His word is trustworthy, then the logical conclusion you must come to is that even what God says about sin and salvation is true as well.
It says in 1 Corinthians 6:9 that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God. And it lists the immoral behavior of those who will not be inheriting the kingdom. But then it says in verse 11 "And that is what some of you were". What happened? They repented and believed in Jesus Christ, God's only son and his death on the cross as the provision for their sins. They realized the truth of God's word as stated in Romans 6:23, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord." The word wages in this verse means the same as payment.
And in Romans 3:23 it says "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus". Jesus himself said, "I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the father but through me" (John14:6). He didn't say I am a way, or a life, as in one amongst many ways to get to God. What He said was pretty exclusive.
Jesus was the lamb of God prophecied throughout the entire Old Testament (or what we Messianic Jews refer to as the First Covenant.) Just look at how Isaiah prophecied the Messiah's coming in Isaiah 53:4-6:
Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
(emphasis by this blogger).
Isaiah could have only been talking of one person: the one who would take away the sins of the world. (John the baptist, or immerser declared this about Jesus of Nazareth. And Jesus' own words declared himself to be the one who would do this.)
The fact of the matter is this: every man on the face of the earth has sinned (transgressed God's moral law as outlined in the 10 Commandments, Deuteronomy chapter 20. Jesus explained further how strict God's law is: if you have so much as looked at a woman with lust in your heart, you have committed adultery. If you so much as hated someone in your heart, you have committed murder (from God's point of view). Ever told a lie...even a little one? Then according to God's strict standard, you have bore false witness. Who amongst us has done that? I sure have!! And no one who has sinned in this life will be permitted to enter Heaven when he or she dies. Nothing unclean or unholy can enter Heaven. Because God is a just God, like the judge of a court, a payment must be made to pay for these sins (every one of them) if you are to enter into His Heaven.
Good News Indeed!
The Good news is......(that is why they call it 'gospel' the word means good news) that that debt for your sins has already been paid!!
By whom?! By God Himself!! In 1 Peter 3:18 it says, "Christ died for sins once for all". You see, to fulfill God's righteous requirement to pay man's sin debt, God Himself came in the flesh. His name is Jesus (Yeshua in Hebrew). He lived a sinless life so he could fulfill God's requirement for a sinless sacrifice (read about the Passover lamb Exodus 12). He then took our punishment on himself. That is why if you accept Jesus' death on the cross as payment for your sins and repent (turn from the way you have been doing things toward God's way of doing things), and follow Jesus, then on the day of Judgement, which will be attended by every human being who ever lived, God can commute your death sentence (eternity in hell), and allow you into Heaven. We don't have to pay the sin debt. We couldn't anyway even if we tried. But we are required to accept what was already done for us. Not only that, but we get to have a close personal relationship with God, who loves us much he knows (at any given moment!) how many hairs are on your head! We get to enjoy fellowship with Him, know his truth, as well as the abundant (full and meaningful) life Jesus came to bring us. If that weren't enough, we get to spend eternity in Heaven with God and have every tear wiped from our eyes, free from emotional and physical pain forever. And forever is a looong time. What could be better news than that?!
It is not a church you join. In fact many churches do not follow after Messiah or walk in the truth. It is not a list of rules and regulations you have to follow in order to be good enough. You could never be good enough to meet God's requirements. In fact, no one should think he must first go and get cleaned up before coming to God or following Jesus! There is no need. Simply believe that he already paid for your salvation, start walking with him by talking to him everyday (praying), and let him change your heart. That's all. Read his letters to you (the Bible) and find out more about him, who he is, things that please him and the things that don't, and he will guide you, as a loving Father; giving your life meaning and giving you a destiny you could never have even dreamed of on your own. And don't forget to ask God to lead you to a group of believers as well so you can grow in His grace. All believers need to fellowship with other believers to be strengthened and to realize our gifts, callings, and destiny in the Messiah.
But don't delay! Jesus warned about the folks who were distracted by the cares of this life that they didn't come to Him when they first heard. The truth is, none of us knows exactly how much time we have on this earth. And why would you want to delay such a wonderful existence anyway?
This is the reason I am so excited to know that God is who He says He is and the reason I can know His Word is true. That is why everytime I look into the precious brown eyes of my son- the ones he inherited from his father's side, his Jewish ancestors.....I think of how faithful our God is and how He always keeps his word!
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