Reaching a lost people
Romans 1:16-17
¶ For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. 17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.
Today the gospel of Jesus Christ is being spread universally to all people since the days of Peter who opened the gospel to the Gentiles and later Paul’s mission to the Gentiles. The gospel has since been taken and preached to all corners of the globe. There are today missionaries in many varied places of the world actively teaching and preaching the gospel and bringing in people of various nations and backgrounds into the Church, or body of Christ.
Yet one nation in the world that seems to largely neglected of the gospel of Jesus Christ, it is ironically the same people most Christians believe are the people chosen and intended of the of promises of God, to whom were given the law, and land and prophesies of the Old Testament –the Jewish people of the modern state of Israel (and elsewhere).
Christians say they “support Israel” speaking of the Middle East Jewish state, and have even given much money in donations to Jewish organization to bring Jews from other lands to the holy land. They give donations to organizations to feed poor elderly Jews or even holocaust survivors. Some give money to purchase equipment such as gas masks and flak jackets to those in state of Israel. Still others raise millions in money to raise the future third temple in Jerusalem.
Many millions of Christians have visited in church groups to the land of Israel on organized tours and spend money developing the state’s economy.
You would think by all this attention to the Jewish people in land of Israel, they would be well versed in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, how Jesus their Messiah died for their sins, and many would be believers in Jesus Christ today, yet the State of Israel is secular and a largely Jewish state and of those who are observant Jews largely practice Judaism, and deny Jesus as their messiah as they await a new messiah to come save them.
Why is it that only about less than 30,000 Messianic Jews, who believe in Jesus Christ, exist in the state of Israel among a population of more than 9 million inhabitants in Israeli state?
The answer lies in the Church’s failure to deny Judaism its place as being of the Old Testament religion of ancient Israel, and its legitimization of Judaism in the eyes of and among a great many Christian churches.
The Church teaches to all others that we are saved by God’s grace through faith in Christ Jesus, and not of any works, nor by any works of the law of God, the Old Testament law. For if one under the law of God cannot keep any part of the law perfectly, he or she is guilty of sin against the law of God.
Our sins are not remitted by the law of God, for the temple no long stands, nor are the sacrifices to God in effect anymore, and all the old laws are now superseded by the New Covenant which was made by YHWH God and Jesus fulfilled the New Covenant before and after he died on the cross.
Only faith in Jesus and his atoning blood sacrifice can one be cleansed of their sins before Almighty God.
Most Christians preach this message to all others except the Jewish people. The Jewish people have been excluded largely of the Gospel of Jesus the Christ. They have been allowed to believe their religion is legitimate, the very doctrine of the ancient Pharisees which our Lord himself condemned and warned his disciples against.
Mathew 16:5-12
¶ And when his disciples were come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread. 6 Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. 7 And they reasoned among themselves, saying, It is because we have taken no bread. 8 Which when Jesus perceived, he said unto them, O ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves, because ye have brought no bread? 9 Do ye not yet understand, neither remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many baskets ye took up? 10 Neither the seven loaves of the four thousand, and how many baskets ye took up? 11 How is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees? 12 Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.
Another large part of the reason for the lacking of evangelizing to the Jewish people has been a relatively new theology in the churches (late 1800s to present) that was widespread and taught among churches today that the Jews will come to accept Jesus in what is known as the seven-day tribulation period, therefore there is no need now to evangelize the Jews (in this present age of the Church), for they shall come to the Lord during this seven-year period (following the rapture of the Church). The Seven-year period is alleged to be the time of “Jacob’s trouble” when the antichrist who will make a covenant with the Jews and by that time there will be new third temple standing in Jerusalem to restart animal sacrifices.
The problem is that the Holy Bible does not anywhere give the existence of a seven-year tribulation period, it's only found in the doctrine and theological interpretation of Cyrus Scofield and his Scofield Reference Bible first published in 1909 and brought into existence the concept of the seven-year tribulation period and the pre-tribulation rapture of the Church. This doctrine is largely witnessed through the churches in what is called premillennial dispensationalism.
The father of dispensationalist theology is John Nelson Darby. Darby’s ideas and notes were later plagiarized in Scofield’s bible reference notes which took Darby’s dispensations and his secret rapture doctrine and disseminated it widely throughout Europe and the Americas in early 1900s.
Another reason why the Jews are not evangelized today is that a segment of the Church has accepted Judaism and accepted other worldly faiths in what has become known as “interfaith” giving other religions legitimacy among the faith in Jesus the Christ.
Interfaith is nothing less than a heresy, the Lord Jesus taught he was the way, the truth, and life, and no man could come to God the Father, but through himself.
John 14:5-7
Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? 6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. 7 If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.
Another reason is that the Jewish people have not been evangelized is the existence of the concept of “antisemitism.” Jews who feel threatened that their religion, or way of life, is denied in any way, have used the term antisemitism to attack the anyone who diminishes their right to believe their religion, or religious customs.
A great part of this has to do with the fact that historically in days of Christian state religion of the church, during the reign of the Roman Catholic empire, Jews were persecuted by church doctrines and laws wrongfully subjected to abuse, forced conversions, massacred in the Crusades for the holy land, and even were violently tortured, or put to death, if they did not convert.
The attitudes of the Christian public that the Jews were killers of Christ mirrored the attitudes of the Church leadership who had the attitude that God was no longer in favor with Israel.
During times of great pestilence, such as the Black Plague, the Jews were rumored to have possibly have been behind the cause. Other vile rumors of Jews would cause public anger and outrage and resulted in massacres of Jews.
Historically the Jews of Europe were persecuted and violently abused at the hands of Christians.
Later this fostered racial hatred of Jews led to a climax in deaths of millions of European and Russian Jews in the German Nazi Holocaust of World War Two.
Today there sadly continue to be many cases of hatred and attacks on Jewish people throughout the world.
So, Christian history, this issue of antisemitism, and the post holocaust world, has caused Christians in the Church today to take lighter tip toe approach to the Jewish people and their religion of Judaism.
Since the Jewish state of Israel was established, Christians have had a change in their attitudes held many centuries before hand.
The Church today, the true Church, body of baptized believers in Jesus Christ, follow the commandments of Jesus to love one another.
John 15:12
This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.
This seems to have been applied everywhere to preach the gospel all over the world, yet for all the good deeds of Christians toward the Jewish people, the gospel has not been preached actively to them.
There are some millions who claim to be “Christian Zionists,” supporting the right of the Jewish people to all the land of promised to Abraham, meaning the State of Israel and all of Palestine, have gone so far as to say the Jewish people are saved solely because they are God’s chosen people, and God’s earthly people, separate from the Church, and they therefore do not need to believe in Jesus the Christ for their salvation from their sins.
This is not only a perversion of the gospel, but a heresy for no one is saved by race nor election by race.
Lastly, the Jews themselves have sought to isolate themselves from conversions. They communicate to Christians coming to visit the state of Israel that you can talk to Israeli Jews, but do not try to convert a Jewish person. Street evangelism by Christians is frowned upon in Israel unless you are an Israeli. They have even passed laws about using technology such as email messages to try to convert a Jewish person in the state of Israel.
It's ok to visit the holy land and spend your money to boost the economy, but do not come and try to evangelize the public for Jesus Christ while you visit Israel. Christian groups visiting are often told by Christian organizations sponsoring the tours not to engage in evangelizing Jewish Israelis.
Did not Jesus first come to the Jewish people of Israel? And then afterward open the gospel largely to the Gentiles?
The Gentiles are today being freely preached the Gospel of Jesus, but the same gospel is not being freely shared with the Jewish people.
Why has the Church failed to reach its most regarded beloved people according to most evangelical Christians today?
Perhaps it has something to do with the way the gospel has been preached in the churches today?
There is no focus on the Jew first and the Greek, or the fact that the gospel was the good news of God’s promised Messiah and his arrival to Israel to bring redemption for their sins.
The intended audience of the Gospel has been changed from seeking the lost sheep of the house of Israel to a more universal audience.
“Christ died for me…”
That audience of the Gentiles has a duty to bring the gospel to the people first given the covenants and who were awaiting the Messiah to save them.
The so called “Gentile Church” which is made of Israelites and strangers grafted into the Israel of God, has failed to reach the Jewish people who are themselves partly of Israel and partly of the strangers who converted to Judaism.
Those who cling to Judaism are clinging to a religion which is out dated and corrupt in God’s eyes simply because it is a corruption of God’s holy Old Covenant law which has been superseded by the New Covenant God made the children of Israel all 12 tribes.
Jeremiah 31:31-33
Behold, the days come, saith YHWH, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: 32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith YHWH: 33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith YHWH, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Matthew 26:28
For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
The Church has failed to teach the Jews that their flawed faith is based on corruption of the law of God, and the church further fails by calling and labeling the old covenant faith of ancient Israel as “Judaism” teaching that our roots come from Judeo-roots of Judaism.
Christianity did not come from Judaism, as Judaism was a post exilic religious current that arose after the Babylonian Captivity of 586 BC and began its roots in Babylon exile in Persia. Judaism is not the faith of Abraham, nor ancient Israel, but arose out of the Babylon Jewish diaspora.
Today most Jews do not read the same Bible Christians read, they learn their doctrine and faith from the Babylonian Talmud, a huge collection of rabbinical writings and commentary on the Hebrew written Torah of YHWH and the newer oral torah which arose out of Babylonian exile of the house of Judah.
Nor do Jewish people interpret the Bible the same way as Christians. Nor do many Jews believe the bible is inspired like Christians do. Nor do many take it literally, but loosely.
The Jews fail to acknowledge they are born into sin, and see some things in the bible as myths.
The apostle Paul said for us to be followers of him.
1st Corinthians 10:32-11:1
Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God: 33 Even as I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved. 1 ¶ Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.
Paul said regarding his ministry that unto to the Jews I became a Jew.
1st Corinthians 9:20-22
And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; 21 To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law. 22 To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. 23 And this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you.
How many Christians have taken the time to study Judaism, Jewish history, and time to read Jewish books and learn what Jews even believe?
One thing is clear from reading Jewish books when they talk about themselves, they are usually brutally honest and you can learn what the Jewish people think about their religion, their culture, their history, their origins.
“Our theology is not the theology of the OT. The tradition that we follow today is not the tradition of the OT, it’s the tradition of the Sages. Shabbat laws, kashrut laws, you name it, it’s not in the Scriptures, not in the OT. In the OT, there is no Synagogue no Kaddish, no Kol Nidre, no Bar Mitzvah, no Tallit. Everything that somebody would define as Jewish and look for its root; it’s not the OT it’s the Sages’ literature. That’s where everything started. Where is Judaism in the OT? Moses was not called a Jew. Abraham, was not called a Jew. David, neither. Only Mordechai, ‘Mordechai the Jew’, and that’s at the end of the OT during the Persian time.” (Prof. A. Shinan)
Source: oneforisrael.org
Jesus surely died for the sins of the world, but his first mission was to Israel, both the Jews of Judah and lost tribes of the house of Israel.
Matthew 10:5-7
¶ These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: 6 But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7 And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Matthew 15:24
But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
Today Christians hardly attempt to preach the gospel to the Jewish people despite millions of them supporting the Jewish people in the state of Israel.
I would be remiss if I did not point out that that overwhelming support of the Jewish Israeli state by millions of Christians has become a form of Idolatry and so much so that it has a severe negative impact on the reach of the Gospel to the larger Arab and Muslim peoples of the world, who are just as lost to the gospel of Christ Jesus as are the Jews today.
We have a duty to preach the Gospel to all creatures as Jesus commissioned us.
Mark 16:15-16
And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. 16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
Romans 1:16-19
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. 17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; 19 ¶ Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
It is my sincere hope that the Church would stop waiting for a future outpouring on the Jews in a dispensation that simply does not exist, and begin today to share the gospel of Jesus the Christ with the Jewish people and all others.
John 4:35
Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.
2nd Corinthians 3:11-16
For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious. 12 ¶ Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech: 13 And not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished: 14 But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ. 15 But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart. 16 Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.