Covenanter Witness Vol. 53 - Rparchives.org

coming."astray."people!"rest."out."sins."is that hope that has been fulfilled ? The coming ofa personal Messiah, the son of David, the Saviour ofthe world. That hope God has deposited within thelife of every Jew, the hope of the coming of thatMessiah.That hope is not a philosophy that we Jews havecreated because we have suffered so much and needsomething to hold us up. It is something that Godhas deposited in ourvery system. In the Book ofGenesis, the Creator of the universe made a promiseto humankind concerning the seed of the woman.Farther on in the Book of Genesis God picked out aheathen man by the name ofAbraham, and made apromise to him, "In thy seed shall all the families ofthe earth be blessed." This is a promise, the comingof the Messiah, that we find in every book of theOld Testament. It is the source of our age-old hope.We who have been brought up to believe in Godand the teachings of the prophets have naturallybecome saturated with that great ideal, that greatpromise that God has made concerning the coming ofthe Messiah. And while we have been waiting allthese centuries for His coming, the orthodox Jewevery day in his prayers says, "I believe in perfectfaith in the coming of the Messiah, and though Hetarry, yet I will daily wait for His This issomething that God has put into the heart and mindof every Jew through the centuries. But if someChristian man who has had an experience withChrist comes to any Jew, and in a loving way, withsympathy and understanding, directs his attentionto the Christ of the New Testament, and he as an intelligent Jew accepts this challenge to examine theclaims of this Jesus of Nazareth, he will immediatelysee, as I did, and thousands of other Jews all throughmy lifetime have seen once they have been given achance, that He is indeed the promised Messiah.A Burden LiftedThe second thing a Jew may find in Christ thathe cannot find in Judaism, is a burden lifted. Just asGod has deposited in the heart of every Jew a hope,so He has deposited within every Jew the consciousness of the presence of sin. It is true that there arethousands of Jews, tens of thousands of Jews, whohave entered into the Christian Science church, socalled, but there are still tens of thousands of Jewswho are conscious of the presence of sin. Listen toone of our prayers: "We have trespassed, we havebeen faithless, we have robbed, we have spoken basely, we have committed iniquity, we have wrought unrighteousness, we have been presumptuous, we havedone violence, we have forged lies, we have counseledevil, we have spoken falsely, we have scoffed, wehave revolted, we have blasphemed, we have beenrebellious, we have acted perversely, we have beenstiff-necked, we have done wickedly, we have corrupted ourselves, we have goneThis is the kind of prayer my people make everyday. Is it any wonder that Paul the Pharisee criedout, "0 wretched man that I am! who shall deliverme from the body of this death?" And Paul was agood Jew, a God-fearing Jew. Yet he was consciousof that presence of sin, a great burden it is. When aChristian comes to a Jew and tells him, "My friend,I know One who can lift that burden, I know Onewho can give you the peace of God that passeth allunderstanding, and that One is Jesus," and theAugust 25, 1954Jew believes, then what happens to him? I knowwhat happened to me. I heard the Son of God say,"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavyladen, and I will give you "Him that cometh tome I will in no wise cast And then I heard theHoly Spirit say, "If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:and he is the propitiation for ourIf I in faithaccept this Lamb of God that taketh away the sinof the world, I know my burden has been lifted. Iknow that my heart has been filled with the love ofGod, with the peace of God that passeth all understanding, and I become a new creature in Christ Jesus.O beloved, what can the Jew find in Christ thathe cannot find in Judaism ? A Saviour who saves tothe uttermost. Neither fasting, nor repentance, northe giving of charity nor philanthropy will removethat burden of sin. It is Christ and Christ only whois able to save._A Vision RealizedOne more thing: A Jew will also find in Christa vision realized. Just as God has deposited withinthe Jewish heart and mind a hope concerning theMessiah and the consciousness of the presence ofsin, so has He deposited in the life of the Jew avision of a new world to come, that some day everyknee will bow before God, every tongue will proclaimHim to be the God of gods and the Lord of lords.But Judaism has done nothing to bring this about.Judaiasm has acted just as the prophet Jonah did.God came to Jonah and told him, "There is a peoplewho are not far from Palestine who are greatly saturated with sin and the time has come for judgmentand punishment, but I want to give them a chance.Go and warn them." And Jonah said to himself, "Iwill not go. I will not go to Nineveh. They are notour friends. What business do I have to go to thegoyim, to the Gentiles? I am interested in my ownAnd he ran away from God. Some of theJewish rabbis and other Jews glory in the fact thatthey are not missionary-minded. Surely they are not.They are not interested in anyone except their ownlittle group. But since we have come to the LordJesus our horizon has widened, our vision has beenenlarged, our hearts have been touched. The apostlePaul, when he accepted the Christ of God, ceased tobe a Pharisee. He became a Christian missionary.The Jew was sitting at home in Jerusalem. The Jewhad a chair as a member of the Sanhedrin. The Jewwas honored by all the Jews because of his greatscholarship. Yet he gave up home and loved ones andhonor and went out to the uttermost parts of theworld to preach the Christ that was crucified,be punished for it, to suffer untold agonies and todie a martyr at last.and toA Jew may find in Christ a hope that can neverbe filled outside of Christ, a burden of sin lifted thatcan never be lifted outside of Christ, and a vision fulfilled, a glorious vision of a world that is some dayto be His, with Jesus the King of that world. What aglorious heritage you and I have in Christ ! May Godgive us burning hearts with a desire and a longing tohasten His coming and until then to work while itis day in a vineyard that is ripe for the harvest.God grant it. Amen.The Alliance Weekly117