Do not weep! Dry your tears, John! There is still hope. There is Someone who is worthy. The mighty angel1 who, with the call of a herald, challenges the whole of Heaven, the earth and the underworld to demonstrate its worthiness and to take the scroll from God’s hand, to look inside it and to break its seals, receives no answer. Because no one can. However, one of the twenty-four angels says: “Dry your tears, John. History will not continue like an endless circle, as Hindus and Buddhists claim. The assertion that ‘l’histoire se répète’—history repeats itself—does not hold true. For there is Someone!”
Who?
The Lion of Judah, the root of David. These are the Messianic titles, the royal titles of the Lord Jesus. He is able and will do it. Jesus, the Jew, will do it.
Salvation is from the Jews. “Judah is like a lion,” said old Jacob, “and the sceptre will not depart from Judah.”2 “The kingdom will never be taken away from David’s house,” said the prophet Nathan.3 It is as if someone at this moment says: ‘You have not yet looked carefully enough, John. Look carefully at Who else is on the throne. There is Someone who has already conquered. The victory has already been won’. “All authority in Heaven and on earth has been given to Me.”4 These titles make it abundantly clear that God’s work of salvation for this world, and in this world, is inseparably linked to the Jewish people. Salvation is truly from the Jews.5 God has decided to choose that nation to reveal Himself to the world and to ultimately bless all the nations through this Seed of Abraham.
Indeed, He created that nation Himself. Abraham was too old and Sarah was past the age of childbearing; she was no longer menstruating and it was biologically impossible for her to become pregnant. “Then God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and indeed I will give you a son by her. Then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her.” Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, “Will a child be born to a man one hundred years old? And will Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?”6 Abraham laughed and Sara laughed, and yet the forefather of the Jewish people, Isaac was born. Sarah became pregnant and she bore Abraham a son in his old age.7
The coming into being of this nation of Israel was a miracle. Isaac was a miracle-baby. God created Israel to bless the world. And in Israel He created Jesus through the Virgin Mary, again to bless the world. Another miracle-baby. The Bible says that God says: Israel is My firstborn son (Exodus 4:22-23, Isaiah 43:5-8), and Jesus is My only-begotten Son.
How many attacks have been made against the Jewish people and Israel during the course of history? Attacks have been made from Pharaoh of Egypt to Haman the Syrian, from Nebuchadnezzar the Babylonian to Antioch Epiphanes the Greek, from Titus the Roman to the Christian crusaders in the Middle Ages, from the Islamic rulers to the Russian tsars. In our own era, anti-Semitism reached its climax in the Christian world of Western Europe under Hitler, with the brutal murder of six million Jews, including one and a half million children, only because they were Jewish.
However, salvation is from the Jews. The Ten Commandments were given to the world by God through Moses and the Jewish people. Through Israel they reached and blessed the world. And the Redeemer, Jesus, the Saviour and greatest blessing for the world was born of His Jewish mother. The powers of darkness immediately tried to kill Him, in the murder of the babies of Bethlehem, Matthew 3:16-18. Why did the satanic attacks against this nation of Israel not cease since then? Could the kingdom of darkness not have abandoned any further attempts when the murder of the innocents at Bethlehem did not succeed in eliminating the Child, and left the Jewish people undisturbed? When He finally died for our sins on the cross and rose from the dead, could the ‘powers of darkness’ since then not have left the Jews alone? And if one holds the view of ‘replacement theology’, claiming that the Church has replaced Israel as the chosen people of God, should they then not concentrate on wiping out the Church instead of Israel and the Jewish people?
Maybe the ‘powers of darkness’ know better than we and many other Christians do – even pastors, priests and theologians – that God will again make use of this nation Israel and of the Jewish people to send His blessings into all the world. Perhaps the darkness wants to prevent at all costs that future salvation to happen. Because they know their Bible. And they know therefore that one day Jesus will sit on the throne of His father, David (in Jerusalem), and reign in the midst of Jacob (Israel), as the angel Gabriel promised His mother Mary, Luke 1:30-35. They understand that if that happens, this will be the beginning of their end. So they will try every trick in the book to make sure that no ‘Jacob’, no Jewish people, no Israel ultimately will survive. Let’s kill them all, they say. Then there will be no longer ‘Jacob-Israel’ so Jesus cannot come and we as demons will live happily ever after. However, the lion of Judah,8 the root of David has already conquered and will therefore conquer. And He will rule and reign in the midst of the House of Jacob, and of His Kingdom there shall be no end.
Bible References:
1.Revelation 5:2 2.Genesis 49:9–10 3. 2 Samuel 7:1–17; 1 Chronicles 17:11–14 comp. Psalm 89, Psalm 132:11; 1 Samuel 13:14; Acts 13:22; Luke 1:32–33 4. Matthew 28:18 5. John 4:22 6. Genesis 17:15-17; 18:9-15 7. Genesis 21:1–7 8.Isaiah 11:1-10 and Isaiah 2:2-4
