Over the last several months the Lord has put on my heart
Isaiah 40:1-2, Comfort, Comfort My
people, says your God. Speak tenderly to
the heart of Jerusalem and cry to her that her time of service and her warfare
are ended, that [her punishment is accepted and] her iniquity is pardoned, that
she has received [punishment] from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.
These verses hold a special place in my heart because I feel
this is what the Lord has called me to do among the children of Israel. It is interesting that Isaiah goes on in this
chapter to say, A voice of one who cries;
Prepare in the wilderness the way of the Lord, make straight and smooth in the
desert a highway for our God! This
is clearly referenced in Mark 1:3 when he speaks of John the Baptist preparing
the way for the Messiah to come.
Then further in Isaiah 40, he says, O you who bring good tidings to Zion, get up to the high mountain. O you who bring good tidings to Jerusalem,
lift up your voice with strength,
lift it up, be not afraid; say to the cities of Judah, Behold your God! Behold, the Lord God will come with might,
and His arm will rule for Him. Behold,
His reward is with Him, and His recompense before Him. He will feed His flock like a shepherd; He
will gather the lambs in His arm, He will carry them in His bosom and will
gently lead those that have their young. These Messianic references cannot
be mistaken.
After reading through this chapter many times I feel my role
as a Gentile is to do exactly what Isaiah is speaking, comfort the people of
God and pray for their release from warfare; go up to the mountain of the Lord
and proclaim Yeshua as Messiah who will bring life back to them just as John
the Baptist did when he said of Yeshua, …He
who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of Whose sandals I am not fit to
unfasten. He will baptize you with the
Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing
shovel is in His hand to thoroughly clear and cleanse His threshing floor and
to gather the wheat and store it in His granary, but the chaff He will burn
with fire that cannot be extinguished. Luke 3:16-17.
Other Gentile believers may not see their role in the same
way but I think it is important to explore what the Bible says our role should
be in regard to Israel. Let’s start by looking at Romans 11. Paul is addressing the Gentiles in this
chapter because they had decided that God was finished with the Jews; that His
promises to them were no longer in effect because they had fallen so far away
from Him. In verse 11 Paul writes, So I ask, Have they stumbled so as to
fall? By no means! But through their false step and transgression
salvation has come to the Gentiles, so
as to arouse Israel [to see and feel what they forfeited] and so to make them
jealous.
Paul is saying God allowed them to stumble so that we as
Gentiles could have salvation and make them jealous so they would come back to
Him. Let me ask you, have you made a
Jewish person jealous lately? Does your
life as a believer in Yeshua cause anyone to be jealous of what you have in His
salvation? What does that actually look
like anyway? According to Paul the only
reason we actually have salvation is because God wanted to make the Jewish
people jealous so they would come back to Him.
In my mind this puts a whole new spin on my relationship with Yeshua and
Father God.
If my love for Yeshua is genuine and I want to please the
Father, my heart and mind will be on what is on His heart and mind. Apparently that is the Jewish people. Now does His love for them diminish in any way
His love for me? Certainly not! As Paul writes in Romans 11:17…some of the branches were broken off, while
you, a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among them to share the richness of
the root and sap of the olive tree…As believers we are grafted into the
richness of the family of God and share in all the blessings and promises that
were made to the Jewish people. God’s purposes don’t always make sense to us
but they are always good and bring us to a place of fullness in Him. There are many instances in the Bible where
God used Gentiles to bring about blessings for the Jewish people. In every case the Gentiles He used were
blessed as well. So although He is the God of the Jewish people and His heart
is toward them we as Gentiles also get to benefit from the promises He made to
them and enjoy the fullness of relationship we can find in Him.
Paul further writes …Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in! That is true. But they
were broken off because of their unbelief and you are established through faith
[because you do believe]. So do not
become proud and conceited, but rather stand in awe and be reverently afraid.
For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will He spare you. Then note and appreciate the gracious
kindness and the severity of God….otherwise you too will be cut off. (Romans
11:19-22) We must watch our
attitudes towards God’s chosen people.
We must never think ourselves better than them because of their
unbelief.
Many well-known Christian leaders over the centuries have
made this mistake. Martin Luther is the reason we have our Bibles and can read
them in our own language. He brought
about many changes in the church that we benefit from today. However, later in
his life he got so frustrated with the stubbornness of the Jewish people toward
Yeshua being the Messiah that he wrote; “the Jews are a defiled bride, yes an
incorrigible whore and evil slut, a whoring and murderous people, and
bloodthirsty bloodhounds and murders of all Christendom” He would also argue
that the reason they were in exile was because they crucified the Messiah.
I would dare to say that if we were living during the time
of Yeshua we may very well have been one of the ones who yelled on that day
before Pilate, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!
We must be careful not to judge the things of which we have no understanding.
According to Paul our job is not to judge the Jewish people, but to bring them
to repentance through our love and our actions; to make them jealous so they
will come back to the Father through Yeshua.
So what is our role as Gentile believers in God’s plan? Cannon Andrew White in his book, Older Younger Brother, outlines the
documented recommitment of the International Council of Christians and Jews in
2009. In this document the ICCJ invites
all Christians and Christian communities to “join them in their efforts to
remove all vestiges of contempt towards Jews and enhance bonds with Jewish
communities worldwide” through the following actions: “combating religious,
radical, and all other forms of antisemitism; promoting interreligious dialogue
with Jews; developing theological understandings of Judaism that affirm its
distinctive integrity; praying for the peace of Jerusalem; acknowledging the
efforts of many Christian communities in the late 20th century to
reform their attitudes towards Jews; examining Jewish texts and liturgy in the
light of these Christian reforms; differentiating between fair-minded criticism
of Israel and antisemitism; offering encouragement to the State of Israel as it
works to fulfill the ideals stated in its founding documents, a task Israel
shares with many nations of the world; enhancing interreligious and
intercultural education; promoting interreligious friendship and cooperation as
well as social justice in the global society; enhancing dialogue with political
and economic bodies; and networking with all those whose work responds to the
demands of environmental stewardship.”
As I was researching this topic and I came across this list
of actions I realized these all line up with Biblical principles as well as
common sense and are exhaustive in their approach. Not all of us will be placed in situations
where all of these will come into play in our daily lives, however, we can take
them and incorporate them on a level that would apply and know we are living
out of the heart of the Father for His people.
In summary I feel it is imperative to know the heart of the
Father regarding the Jewish people. It
is also imperative to have the understanding that we were grafted in only at
their expense and it is God’s desire for us to make them jealous so that He can
graft them back into the olive branch which is Yeshua. So that being said, our goal is to ask the
Father what He would have us do with the Jewish people right where we
live. To ask Him to connect us with those
of the Jewish community in our cities that He wants to love and bring to a
place of jealousy and repentance. Then, to
ask Him to show us how He would have us make them jealous.
Paul wrote in Romans 11:12 and 15 Now if their stumbling has so enriched the world and if Israel’s
failure means such riches for the Gentiles, think what an enrichment and
greater advantage will follow their full reinstatement. For if their rejection and
exclusion from the benefits of salvation were for the reconciliation of a world
to God, what will their acceptance and admission mean? It will be nothing short
of life from the dead!
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