King Of The Jews - Part 1

"Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." Hebrews 11:3

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. "Hebrews 11:1

Perhaps you lack faith or your faith is weak. How do you get faith or strengthen the faith you have? By reading God's words to you, his written expression of His divine nature and character. His abiding love for His creation and His provision for us, first as spiritual beings and secondly as human beings with everything that goes with being human.

"Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing comes by the Word of God." Romans 10:17

It is extremely significant that much of God's Word to us concerning faith is expressed by the Apostle Paul (nee Saul of Tarsus) in his writings to the Hebrews. Who are the Hebrews? The Jewish people. "Salvation is of the Jews." John 4:22

Paul was himself a Jew. You've heard the expression "A man's man" to describe a really macho dude. Well, Paul described himself as "A Jew's Jew."

If you have prejudice against the Jewish people you are treading a very dangerous pathway. Your very salvation was dependent on the Jews. Firstly, Jesus is Jewish. Yes, He is and yes He was. His mother and earthly father were Hebrews.

"Mary was a Jew?" I can hear some of you asking. Yes, Mary was not a "Catholic". Mary was a Hebrew. She was a nice Jewish girl who heard God and believed Him.

Yahweh is the closest word we have received to an approximation of the one true God's name. Jehovah is a derivative. Unfortunately this name conjures up images of door to door salespersons flogging a belief system that is totally out of sync with the God of the Bible. Jehovah's Witnesses. Sadly, they are a cult with no understanding of God's grace. They are a works based religion offering no hope. If man could work his feeble way to Heaven, there would have been no need for Jesus to pay the ultimate price.

In fact, any "religion" which bases salvation in any measure on works is a false and empty exercise. Why?

"By grace are you saved through faith, not of works lest any man should boast." Eph. 2:9

In fact our "good works" are less than nothing to God if we are not redeemed by His Son. Man's righteousness in an unredeemed state is according to God "...as filthy rags": All of man's efforts to redeem himself are futile. God's standards are extremely high: He demands perfection. Batting .999 is not good enough.

"Nobody's perfect" you might be saying. Yes, that is true with one exception. Y'shua or Jesus. He was perfect. "The lamb without spot or blemish" who was slain in our place, just as the ram was slain in place of Isaac. Jesus was the perfect sacrifice.

"How can I meet God's demand for perfection?" you may ask yourself. You can appropriate by faith, the work of Jesus on the cross. "By grace (unmerited favor, God's gift to you) are ye saved through faith." It's so simple many pass it by. "The straight and narrow way" is marked simply, a small hand-lettered sign that points the way to Salvation. On the other hand is the wide road to destruction, marked garishly with the bright, flashing neon-signs of hedonism, humanism, paganism and most frightening of all, ecumenism.

"Religion is the cause of all the world's problems." How many times have you heard this or perhaps even voiced this very true statement. Yes, religion, man's pathetic attempts to scale the ramparts of Heaven and unravel the cosmos by his own limited understanding has contributed to holocaust after holocaust.

True Christianity: The Hussites, Cathars, Huegenots and before them the Jews, have been slaughtered nearly out of existence by the powers of Darkness parading in robes of religious finery. The false church has corporately destroyed millions of true Christians throughout the years.

The true Church is invisible and completely united. It is not a building, an institution or a physical location. Any visible symbol of the "Church" is merely temporary. The New Testament, early true Church believers met in one another's homes. There was virtually no hierarchical structure, no high priest, no membership card. "The Kingdom of Heaven is within." Jesus himself is our high priest. We have no need for any other mediator.

Finally, there is a war raging here on earth and I don't mean just the physical war by and against the terror of Islam. Islam, (surrender/submission) is attempting to conquer the world by the sword. You've seen the men beheaded by the radicals on TV. The message: submit to Islam or die by the sword. You're in this war whether you choose to be or not: 9/11 proved that.

Christianity's message: accept a gift, salvation given by a sword, but not a physical sword: a spiritual sword that is sharper than any two-edged sword made by men. That sword is the word of God.

"And the Peace of God which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." Phil. 4:7

Jesus: King of the Jews?

"The Bible is a Jewish book, written by Jews, about a Jew, the King of the Jews. One reason Christians have such a poor understanding of the Bible is that they have divorced Christianity and the Bible from its Jewish roots."*

Why you may ask yourself, is the Jewishness of Christianity even an issue. (Again) "Salvation is of the Jews" John 4:22 As God Almighty's chosen people, the Jews were charged with bringing the light of God's love to a hopelessly darkened world. In His incredible wisdom and compassion God used their rejection of His son Jesus as the rightful heir to the throne of David and more importantly as the King of their hearts and minds, to allow the rest of the world a chance at the incredible gift of Salvation from sin that is the fatal plague that brings death to fallen mankind.

Understand that without the Jewish race, all of the rest of mankind was without hope. "...being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having NO HOPE (italics added) and without God in the world" Ephesians 2:12

Make no mistake: We were without hope. Jesus in his conversation with the gentile woman from Canaan, minced no words. He referred to Gentiles, all those outside the House of David as "dogs". He was not being cruel. He was speaking the truth.

One reason I feel compelled to address this issue is that in the entertainment industry, there is a large percentage of Jewish people at every level. In fact in 1972, on AMERICA's first U.S. tour we had to have Musician's Union cards. In order to obtain them we had to be employed in New York City, the local to which we were applying for membership. The Union rep. We were assigned told us that for purposes of expediting the cards we had to claim that we were appearing in an off-Broadway production. Since in reality we weren't doing so, he suggested a fictitious play title to complete the ruse. His title; "The Dog in the Manger". The look on his face as he studied our Gentile faces and names suggested to me that he was in fact aiming a barb at us. Yes, to Jews we are on the outside looking in. But wait, before you take offense understand this: "They are blinded in part for our sakes." Romans 11:25

"But now in Christ Jesus ye who were far off are brought near by the blood of Christ. For He is our peace, who HATH MADE BOTH ONE (italics added), and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us." Eph. 2:14

Gentiles were not allowed into the Temple of God in Jerusalem, the Jew's Holy city, the true city of God, named so by the Almighty. They were allowed into the courtyard, but not into the Temple proper. The Jews themselves could enter the Temple but not into the inner sanctum sanctorum: the Holy of Holies. Only the High Priest was allowed into the Holy of Holies. Yet God, through the sacrificial death of Jesus, broke down the wall separating Gentile and Jew and at the same time broke down the wall separating Man from God. "...that He might reconcile both unto Himself in one body (one group, together) by the cross." Eph. 2:16

Jesus "...came and preached peace to you who were afar off (the Gentiles, out in the courtyard) and to them that were near (the Jews, inside the Temple, near the Holy of Holies but not quite there, separated by the veil, a very, very thick tough tapestry, a virtual wall, not a thin gauze tissue), for through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of course the household of God ." Eph. 2:17-19

We literally owe the Jews. We inherited a share of their priceless gift of the knowledge of the one true God. Without the Jews we wouldn't even know His name. Before Moses, man had no name for God, the great "I am." In a sense we still cannot name His name, but that's for another day. Jesus pressed His claim of divinity and proved that he could also truly claim to be the great "I am." As witnessed by a multitude on the day of his arrest and in response to the question as to His identity and if He was the man the arresting party sought, Jesus' simple response, "I am", literally knocked a party of burly soldiers to the ground. This was not a phony healing service or a carnival trick. Hardened warriors fell over upon their backs at the sound of God's voice.

The significance of our relationship to the Jewish people is today of more importance than ever. The world is arrayed against the tiny nation of Israel. This miniscule strip of land, given to them by Almighty God, ignites the Satanic fury of all God-haters, Jew-haters and ultimately haters of Christ and His disciples. Why? Because the very existence of this nation, dead for two thousand years and resurrected as a witness to the world of the truth of God's existence and the validity of his plans and prophetic pronouncements flies in the face of the God-haters.

Just as Jesus lay in the grave for two days (with God a thousand years is as a day), the old Testament prophecy of Israel lying in the grave for two days and being resurrected on the third day has come startlingly true, in the lifetime of many of you reading these words. Hosea 6:1,2 "...He hath smitten, and He will bind us up. After two days He will revive us: in the third day He will raise us up."

Jesus: The Alpha and the Omega

It is important to note that the first believers in Y,shua as Messiah (Messiah=Christ=Anointed One) were Jewish. His mother, His brothers and sisters, the 12 Apostles and countless thousands of Jewish citizens. If Jesus had been as unpopular a figure amongst the Jews as he is today, He would never have been perceived as a threat to the Jewish Religious leaders, Caiaphas and Annas and their followers, the Pharisees. The triumphal entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem at Passover which drove the Pharisees into a frenzy would never have raised such ire if He had been ignored or rebuffed by the general population.

It has been written that the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed and the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed. The overriding concern of the Temple elite was the love of money, the root of all evil. Jesus condemned the activities of the moneychangers, a portion of whose profits fattened the purses of Caiaphas and Co..

The more legitimate fear, that Jesus was there to abolish or destroy the Old system of animal sacrifice and the parsing of the laws of God was addressed by Jesus Himself. "I have come not to destroy the Law but to fulfil it." Jesus fulfilled all the requirements of the Law and imputes that righteousness to all who believe on Him and put their full faith in Him for Salvation. Jesus was the lamb without spot or blemish or as John the Baptist declared upon seeing Him, "Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." John 1:29

Hard to imagine that the ego and greed of Caiaphas and Annas would deny Christ, the lamb of God, in favor of the rigorous system of Levitical Laws that governed every aspect of life and was virtually impossible to adhere to. Jesus sacrifice, once for all versus an endless cycle of rules and infractions, sacrifices and ritual. Left to choose, the average Jew chose the former but were denied that choice by their Leadership, their rulers. No wonder the Bible says to pray for those in authority. Pray that they don't offend God.

I challenge you reader, whether you be Gentile, Jew, Christian or whatever, to read all 27 Books of the Levitical Laws, 40 pages of laws and more laws, and declare your ability to meet its demands. No-one, I repeat no-one apart from Christ could do that. Even the framework of the laws, the 10 commandments thwarts all men to meet its strictures. I often wonder if the day that Moses returned from the mountain with the 10 commandments and asked the people if they would commit to keeping them, that if instead of assenting they had thrown themselves down upon the ground and cried out, "There's no way we can do that." What God's response would have been. He knew they could never keep the Law.

The Word: As God the Father spoke the worlds into existence, Jesus "The Word" fulfilled the action of creation. "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God (Jesus)." Now the trinity is a hard concept to grasp, certainly with our limited human understanding. However, it is possible for something to be three things at one and the same time. Water, ice, vapor: all forms of H20 that can occur simultaneously.

It is my understanding that all of God's word, the Old and New Testament books of the Bible are an incredible word portrait of the Messiah. For instance, the book of Job: a book which strikes fear into hearts of most who read it, describes a good man who is beset by all manner of evil, though he himself is innocent. Do you not see Jesus here? A good man, a man who sacrificed for his children to cover even their hidden sins. He was brought to nothing and in the end arose to a higher place.

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