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the history. It's a very difficult thing to present because you can only do so much in 45 minutes. And there are many other things that relate to it that there's just not time there to bring them in. What I want to share with you this morning is the theological reason why a Jewish people will not embrace Jesus as Messiah. At Sunday school, we saw the historical reason. And those of you who were in Sunday school, if I'd ask you the question, if you were Jewish, would you be interested in Jesus Christ? Among most believers, when they see the history, they begin to grasp why Jewish people are greatly offended at the name of Christ and those of us who carry that name. And so we need to have a proper response for them. This morning, we're going to talk about the theological reason why Jewish people reject the gospel. Judaism disagrees on many things. You will find that very true. It was Golda Meir that said, this is the hardest job in the world because everybody in Israel thinks they're the prime minister. It's just every Jewish person has an opinion and they vocalize it. However, there's one area where Jewish people are united. That's something called the Shema. Deuteronomy 6, verse 4, they in great unanimity, I got that word out, will say, Hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And it's from their perspective, end of discussion. We win, you lose. Well, we want to look at the Hebrew Scriptures today and see that that response, it isn't quite that simple. And we want to look at some things. I have written a book called, The Triunity of God is Jewish. And what I attempt to do in this book is to take the subject of the triunity of God and show that God revealed himself in the Hebrew scriptures as a plurality and unity, a triunity, and also present the fact that the Messiah is God. Because Judaism believes in a Messiah, at least the Orthodox believe in a personal Messiah, but he'll be nothing more than a man. That's it. And we want to be able to demonstrate from the Hebrew Scriptures that God revealed Himself to Israel as a plurality, triunity, and the Messiah is God. So we want to demonstrate those things. One other thing that I'll mention, there's also one of many that's back there, a book called Messianic Christology, which deals with all the first coming references of Messiah. And if you're going to share your faith with Jewish people, you need to know how Jesus Christ fulfilled the Hebrew Scriptures in relating to himself. They're not interested in the New Testament. Jewish people have been taught that two things come from the New Testament, anti-Semitism and idolatry. So we need to be able to demonstrate from the Hebrew Scriptures. And by the way, you notice I'm calling it something different. I say the Hebrew scriptures. There's a reason for that. I don't say Old Testament, because you know what old means? Worn out, no longer of value, no longer of use, put it on the shelf, put it in the attic. You know, that's what you do with old stuff, right? Hopefully they won't do that with me. But old has a wrong connotation, no longer of value. And so what it is, it's a statement that we make repeatedly in the ears of Jewish people, we're saying that their scriptures are no longer of value. So we need to use an alternate term. And the Hebrew scriptures is a good one. There's also another term, the Tanakh, which is an acronym for the prophets, or the law, the prophets, and the writings. So bear some of those things in mind as you share their faith. We do have to change our vocabulary a little bit because some of it is simply offensive. And it does not help us at all in being able to present the gospel. This morning, we want to look at some things in scripture. Before we go back into the Hebrew scriptures, I want you to turn with me to the book of John. Now, if I was sharing my faith with a Jewish person, I wouldn't be turning to the book of John. But since today I'm with you, I want to share a couple of things with John before we go back. The book of John, chapter one. I want you to look at a verse, or a couple of verses we're gonna look at in John before we go back into the Hebrew scriptures. In John 1.18, you have the testimony of a fellow by the name of Yochanan the Immerser, or John the Baptist. I wanna see what he has to say in relationship to Yeshua, the Lord Jesus Christ. He says this in relationship to him. No man has seen God at any time. Now think about that for a moment. No man has seen God at any time. Who met with Abraham? Who met with Moses? And yet John the Baptist is saying no man has seen God at any time. What's that all about? The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him. Now, that's taking it from a, what we call, New Testament perspective. But let's go look and see what Jesus said about the whole issue. Turn to John 5. John 5. We look at a verse here. It's a verse I've read for years, and I don't know, maybe you do the same thing I do. You know, we read verses, and it kind of goes... in one side and out the other. And there's a lot of stuff in this verse that I never saw before. John 5 37 says, and the father himself, which has sent me, hath borne witness of me. You have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape. Now that's an interesting verse. Because if that is the case, that no man has ever seen God, who walked with Adam and Eve in the garden? Who walked with Enoch? Who spoke to Noah? Who spoke to Abraham on numerous occasions, appeared unto him? Who spoke to Moses? And on and on we can go through the Hebrew scriptures. Jesus is saying that no man has ever seen the father nor heard his voice. So who did they hear? They heard God the Son, because as John said, the Son declares the Father. The Son is the sent one, not the Father. Look at verse 39. Search the Scriptures, for in them you think ye have eternal life. They are they that testify of me." Now, you know what he's referring to there when he references that. He's not referring to all 66 books, because 27 of them hadn't been written yet. He's referring to the Hebrew Scriptures. They testify of him. And it's more than just the verses we use at Christmastime. You know, Isaiah 9, Micah 5, 2, great verses talking about the Messiah and his coming. But what I want to impress upon you is that the second person of the Godhead was active in the Hebrew Scriptures. Jesus did not begin his ministry in Bethlehem. Jesus began His ministry in the creation. In fact, there are references in the Hebrew Scripture that show the fact that the second person of the Godhead created. You don't have to go to Colossians 1 all the time. There are verses in the Hebrew Scriptures, too. There's another verse. It even becomes more interesting. A couple of verses down, verse 46. Jesus said to the leadership, had you believed Moses, you would have believed me. For he, Moses, wrote of me. Now think about that for a minute. If you just had the Torah, how would you present the person, the Redeemer, the Messiah, who we know as Jesus Christ, from the Torah? And yet Yeshua said, He wrote it to me. It begs the question, what did Moses say? Now it's important to understand some things in relationship to the triunity of God. It is often projected among Judaism and among liberal Christianity that the Trinity was something that was invented by the church. Of course, nobody bothered to tell Paul and Peter and Matthew and so on, who lived in the first century. If God did not reveal his son as God, as a member of the Godhead, in the Hebrew scriptures, then for God to hold the Jewish people responsible for rejecting Him, God would be unjust. How can you hold somebody accountable for something if they couldn't have known it? What I want to do is I want to show to you from the Hebrew Scriptures that God revealed Himself to Israel as a plurality and unity, a triunity. and he presented the Messiah, the one who would come of the seed of David, that it would be God. And so if you would, turn with me back to a very familiar portion of scripture, all the way back to Genesis chapter one. Now, I'm gonna have to contain myself a little bit here, because that book that I've written, I've revised it, and it only has 936 pages in it. So what I'm going to do is, as I said at the Sunday school, we're going to do a flat rock across the top of the river. And as I do that, I want you to remember, where we're skipping across the top, there is so much more underneath that. Genesis 1, very familiar verse. In fact, at one time, this verse was on a postage stamp. I don't know, well, those of you who are my age would remember that when they sent the men up in the moon and they took a snapshot back at the earth and they made a postage stamp and they said, in the beginning, God. Very fascinating verse. What's fascinating about this verse is the word for God. The word for God in the Hebrew is Elohim. It is a plural word for God, which is kind of odd. Because if God is one, as Judaism says, why are they using a plural word? What is also even more fascinating is in the Hebrew language, there are two words for God that are in the singular. And the authors of scripture in the Hebrew scriptures chose to use a plural word for God predominantly. Why'd they do that? There is the word El, where we get the word El Gabor, mighty God. There's the word Elaha, which is also singular. So if God is an absolute one, then he should demonstrate it in his language. And by the way, who is the creator of language? We didn't make it up ourselves. He's the creator of language. He's also the creator of something that I never cared much for in school, called grammar. He's the creator of language. And what we need to understand, if we believe in verbal inspiration of scripture, that God wrote what he wanted written. Not what men try to reinterpret. And there's a lot of guys out there that reinterpret. So why did God choose a plural word? What is even more unique is in Hebrew as well as in English, if you have a plural noun, the verb will also be what? Plural. There are a couple of grammarians here. Yeah. However, here, when Elohim is used, you have a singular verb created. Why is God doing that? Now, God understands the heart of man better than we do. He knows that man has this innate desire to worship something. Of course, they don't particularly like to worship him because they're accountable to him. So they worship something. The human mind in history has been polytheistic. They worshipped anything that walked. They worshipped the hosts of heavens. They worshipped, you name what they worshipped, I mean everything. So how does God reveal himself as a plurality and yet one God? And he does it through language. God, if he was an absolute one, as Judaism said, could have used the word El. In the beginning, El created one, period. That's all it can mean. But here, God uses a plural word. In the beginning, God, Elohim, plural, created singular. God takes a plural and a singular to put them together, and it should send our antennas up that God is plural, but he's one. Now go with me to another verse. Go down to verse 26, another familiar portion of Scripture. Now, when God created in the days of creation, it simply says, and God said, and it was so. Everything was created that way in six literal days. However, when you get to the creation of man, all of a sudden, God completely changes how he says it. He doesn't say, and he said, and it was so. In verse 26, he says, Let us. That's a total departure from all the other days of creation. Why is he saying let us? Well, we already have the introduction to the plurality in verse one with eleim. Let us make man in our image after our likeness. In verse 27, he goes into using the singular again because whenever God acts, God acts in the singular. But very often when God speaks, he speaks in the plural. When God created, God has dominion over the heavens. God created man to have dominion over the earth. God here is revealing his person because he becomes very personal here. From God said, and it was so, to let us make man in our image after our likeness. He's revealing his personality. He's a being, he thinks, he cares, he loves, he plans, he charts out the future. Now He's going to create a being like Him that can do some of the very same things, be it on a limited scale, but do the same things. What is interesting, He said He created man, and what did He do when He created man? He created man and He split man, and He made man, plural, male and female. and they too together were to have dominion over the earth. That shouldn't be missed. And I will say as well, this is kind of a little sidelight, that we as men need to take note of that verse because men have done, over the centuries, have depressed women. Man and woman, God created equal. Different responsibilities, different function, but equal. And we dares and forget that because a lot of times in the church that has been forgotten too. Not only did God create man in the plural, man and woman, but each one of you here is a triunity. God made you with a body. That's what we see. God gave you a soul and God gave you a spirit. You're a triunity. It's not so hard to believe that God can be a triunity. He created us as a triunity. You know, we don't have to go around and use an egg as an illustration to try to explain God or water. No, God said, you are the example. You bear my image, my likeness as a human being, a created being. God is saying some very special things in Genesis 1. It's the book of beginnings. Bereshit, beginning, Genesis. This is where he's laying out the foundations for what will be given throughout the rest of Scripture. Now, there's something else we need to take note of in relationship to the terms that God is using about himself. Elohim, as I said, is a plural word. In Genesis 1-2, verse 4, Elohim is the only one that speaks. And here you have in 26, it says, Elohim says, let us make man. Then when you move over to Genesis chapter three, verse 22, you have God speaking again, but this time, and he uses the word us again after the fall. He says, they have become one of us, knowing good and evil. The one who is speaking in the text is not Elohim. It's Elohim Yahweh. Now what's interesting about the word Yahweh, and actually we really don't know the pronunciation because it's been lost, but we say Yahweh or Jehovah, is that that word is a singular word for God. And it is only, only ever used as singular for God. So you have God combining a plural word and a singular word as He says, man has become one of us, knowing good and evil. Showing plurality and oneness. Now as you move on a little bit further in Genesis, Genesis 11 verse 7, this is the Tower of Babel. where God had told them to disperse throughout the earth and multiply, they all wanted to stay right there at the plain of Shinar. They wanted to build themselves a tower. They wanted to make a name for themselves. And so God said in verse 7, let us go down and confound their language. There you got us again, that plural pronoun that keeps popping out. But what's even more interesting about it is that the speaker in Genesis 11 is not Elohim. It is simply Yahweh. That's a singular word for God. Yahweh, singular, says, let us go down and confound our languages. God referring to himself in the plural. We're gonna look at that word a little bit closer as we go down the road here a little bit. One other place where that personal pronoun pops out is in Isaiah 6, verse 8. Great missionary verse. Missionaries like to use it. The Lord says, who will I send? That's singular. Who will go for us? Plural. Now what's interesting is it's not Elohim that's speaking. It's not Yahweh that's speaking. It is Anani. Another word for Lord. And when it's used of him, it is always plural. I even found that in a Jewish dictionary of all places. So there's some fascinating things as you look at God. Now, as you go through Scripture, you run across an individual called the angel of the Lord. The angel of the Lord actually first appears to a lady and wasn't even Jewish. It was Hagar, the Egyptian, the handmaiden of Sarai. The angel of the Lord appeared under her. And what is interesting as you go through some of these texts, and I can't turn to all of them, but as you go through some of these texts, you'll find something very interesting, is that the angel of the Lord speaks as Elohim, and the angel of the Lord also speaks as Yahweh. The words are interchangeable. You even have those passages of scripture where Yahweh, who is God, speaks, and you have the angel of the Lord, who is God, speaks, as being distinct from each other, and yet one. The angel of the Lord appeared unto Hagar, but before that, in Genesis chapter 12, verse seven, it says the Lord appeared unto Abraham. In chapter 15 of Genesis, it says, the word of the Lord appeared and said, that's interesting, and I'd love to go into that topic, unto Abraham. In chapter 17, verse 1, it says, and the Lord appeared unto Abraham. That's a physical manifestation. That's what the word means. And then you go to verse 22 of Genesis 17, and there it says, and the Lord went up from Abraham. You run across some really neat things as you go through and you begin to look at these. By the way, what does angel mean? That's correct. It means messenger. So erase from the cobwebs of your mind anything about angels, messengers, having wings, sitting on clouds, playing harps. It's just not an angel. An angel means messenger. It could be a messenger on earth, or it could be a messenger from God. That's what angel means. Now, I want you to go with me to Exodus chapter 3. This is Moses. Moses is herding his father-in-law's sheep, and he's up on Mount Sinai. And he sees this bush burning. He says, hmm, I gotta take a look at this. What was so unique about it is the bush was burning, but it wasn't being consumed. So he had to take a look at this. Look at verse two. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him, and a flame of fire out of the midst of the bush Look at verse four. This is the angel of the Lord now. And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, Elohim called to him out of the midst of the bush. Here you have those three words used interchangeably of the same person who was initially identified as the angel of the Lord. Now, if you think rabbis didn't see this, they saw it. Problem is they didn't know what to do with it. because from their perspective, God is one. They struggled with it. They really did. Judaism became very, very, lost the word, intense on the oneness of God after the captivity. Because you remember, they went into captivity because they were worshiping idols. And God cured them, sent them into captivity. When they came back, they said, you know, that really wasn't a nice experience. We don't want to repeat it again. And so they became very focused on the idea that God is one. We daresen't go out and worship other gods. God is one. Him alone we worship. And so their focus was on that. But as they looked through scripture, they saw passages like Exodus 3. And he says, what do we do with this? They even developed something called a Metaron. And they said, the Metaron has the very name of God in him. This Metaron even sees the very face of God. Some of them wanted to make him a secondary god. I mean, there was a lot of interaction that was going on. But by the time the end of the Second Temple period ends, Judaism had pretty much came around to God as one period. And the one things that the rabbis are really good at is gymnastics. I call it rabbinic gymnastics. How do you explain away what obviously the scripture says? They're very creative there. And you can go all the way through here. Look at verse six. The angel of the Lord is speaking. Look what he says. Moreover, he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God. Look at verse 14. And Elohim said, the one who's in the bush, the one who's been speaking with all this time, I am that I am. I am the eternal, present God. I am. Past, present, future, I am. So he has some verses like this. Now I want you to go with me to Judges, chapter two. Joshua, Judges. Israel has gone through, conquered the majority of the land. All that was left up was the mop-up duties, which they failed to do. But chapter two wants you to see something. Again, this angel of the Lord individual. Look what it says. And the angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochen and said, I made you to come up out of Egypt and have brought you into the land which I swore unto your fathers. And I said, I will never break my covenant with you. Now, what's so fascinating about that is it's the angel of the Lord says, I did this. It isn't Elohim, it isn't Yahweh, it's the angel of the Lord. The messenger of the Lord says, I brought you out of the land of Egypt. If you go back to Exodus chapter 23, God refers to the angel and he says, this one, listen to. My name is in him. Obey his voice. He's gonna go with you. Says the same thing in Exodus 32. You understand, the angel of the Lord is the one who took Israel out of Egypt. He's the one responsible for getting them from point A to point B. and everything that happened in between, he's a part of. He not only said, I made the covenant with Abraham. Go back to Genesis 15 and read it. What's interesting there is in Genesis 15, the one who is speaking to Abraham identifies himself as the Word of the Lord. You wonder sometimes where John got his idea from in the Gospel of John 1.1, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, the same was in the beginning with God. It didn't lead to Lagos philosophy. He recognized Nimrah. The Word. The Word came and gave, made, I should say, the covenant with Abraham. It was the Word of the Lord that walked between the animals, making that covenant, not letting Abraham do it, because he knew Abraham couldn't keep his end. God made the covenant with Himself. Here the angel of the Lord says, I'm the one that did it. I'm the one that made the covenant. Now I want you to do one other thing. You don't have to necessarily turn back to it, but you can. Deuteronomy 6, 4. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. The key verse that Judaism uses to show God is absolutely one. It's an interesting verse, because it says, and the Lord, and that's Yahweh, that's one. Our Eloheinu, which is plural, by the way, our gods, is echad, one. I have looked and looked and looked for people to talk about that thing, and not a whole lot of people talk about that. How is echad used in the Hebrew scriptures? Because Judaism says it's an absolute one. So I looked up all 382 references of echad used by Moses in the Torah. Interesting. When you sit down and you look at echad in the Torah, Moses never used it as an absolute. He always used it as within a context of plurality. Let me illustrate. In the evening and the morning were the echad day. Two things became one. Genesis 2, God created a man and woman and he brought the two together and they too became echad flesh. In Exodus chapter 24, when Israel agrees to the law that God gave, it says Israel said so with echad voice. They're all context of plurality. When Moses was fighting the Amalekites, well, not Israel was, Moses was up on the hill holding his arms up. And as long as he held his arms up, they'd win. As soon as they'd start to sink down, they'd start to lose. And so what does the scripture say? The scripture says that Aaron took a stone and put it under Echad's arm. And Hur took a stone and put it under Echad's arm. Once again, you've got a plural context. Another place where it is used often, where in Leviticus and in Numbers where it says to take a lamb and describing the sacrificial stuff, take a lamb and offer it unto me. Well, the question that needs to be asked is where do you get a lamb? You get a lamb from a flock. So you go into a plural environment and you take a lamb out to offer. Once again, plural context. You find this type of thing throughout. That's how the word echad is used by Moses. Moses never used it as an absolute. Now, was there a Hebrew word for absolute? Yes, there was. Genesis chapter 22, where God says to Abraham, Abram, take your son, take your Yahid son, your only son, Isaac, one alone, take him. There was only one Isaac. There was only one son of promise. Remember, Abraham had two sons at that point. God specifically mentions one. It's the word Yahid. Now, what is interesting is, well, how do the rabbis miss this? You have to understand something. Rabbis don't study the Bible, per se. They study the writings of rabbis. Now, there was a great rabbi by the name of Moses Mamonides from Egypt, back in the 1200s, and he made up the 12 Articles of Faith for Israel. And the second article of faith had to do with this subject. And when he wrote it in Hebrew, he looked at it and he said, mm, echad is not a good word because it shows plurality. So instead, in his writings, he used the word yachid. Now, the rabbis study what Maimonides said and wrote. They don't go back to the Hebrew scriptures and see that Yahkid is not in Deuteronomy 6.4. Echad is in Deuteronomy 6.4. So rather than substantiating the absolute oneness of God, Deuteronomy shows the plural unity of God. Interesting. Now, I'm watching the clock, so let's go over to Isaiah. Isaiah chapter 48, while you're turning there, Isaiah is a marvelous book. How many chapters are in Isaiah? Yeah, how many books are in the Bible? Isaiah is divided into two divisions. The first division is chapters 1 through 39. How many books are in the Hebrew Scriptures? Well, that leaves a balance of 27, right? How many books are in the New Testament? What does the second portion of Deuteronomy emphasize? The servant of the Lord who will come to Israel and be the substitutionary vicarious sacrifice. What does the New Testament talk about? Same thing. Isaiah is a neat book. Look at Isaiah 48. Let's start at verse 12 because we want to identify our speaker. It says, "'Hearken to me, O Jacob, and Israel, my called. I am he. I am the first and I am the last.'" My hand hath laid the foundations of the earth, and my right hand hath spanned the heavens. And when I call them, they stand together." So here you have this individual, God, identifying himself as the one who called Israel, the one who says, I am the first and I am the last. I am the creator. He continues to speak on down through here. I want you to see verse 16. Come near to me, hear ye this. I have not spoken in secret from the beginning. From the time that it was, there am I. Now look at this. And now the Lord God and his spirit hath sent me. Who's me? Well, in the Hebrew Scriptures in the text, who is the me? Verse 12, the one who called Israel, the one who is the first and the last, the one who is the creator, was sent by the Lord God and His Spirit. By the way, it's the clearest picture of the triunity of God in the Hebrew Scriptures is in Isaiah 48, 16. Now the next time you read through the Gospel of John, take a pencil and mark how many times Jesus says, the Father sent me. Because he's simply repeating what he already said in Isaiah 48, because he's the sent one. He's the speaker in these verses. Now, unless you think I'm stretching stuff a little bit, look over at chapter 50. of Isaiah. Look at verse 1. Again, we will identify our speaker. Thus saith the Lord, Yahweh, God is one. That's how the word is used. By the way, an interesting side note to that. In Genesis 19.24, when you have the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, you know, all the fire and brimstone coming down on them. The one that was with Abraham in chapter 18 was the Lord, Yahweh. What is interesting, we get to 1924 of Genesis, it says, and the Lord rained down fire and brimstone from the Lord in heaven to Yahweh's because God is plural and they're one. Anyway, thus saith the Lord, that's your speaker. Now he speaks all the way down through here. You can look down through, you can see the I's and the my's and the whatnot. He's speaking all the way down through here. Look at verse four. And the Lord God hath given me. Now just stop again. Who is me? Me's the speaker. Who's the speaker? Yahweh. Well, then who is the Lord God? Again, you have plurality. Now, unless you think I'm stretching it, read with me, because I want you to see that this is the person of Yeshua. The Lord God has given me a tongue of the learned that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. He awakens me morning by morning. He awakens my ear to hear as the learned. And the Lord God has opened my ear and I was not rebellious, neither turned away my back. I gave my back to the smiters, my cheeks to those who pluck off the hair. I did not hide my face from humiliation and spitting. Do you need help to identify that? Yahweh, in order to endure what He says happened to Him in verse 6, had to become flesh. You see, God is spirit. Poor illustration, but have you ever tried to nail Jell-O to the wall? You can't do it. God is spirit. You can't pull the hair out of a spirit's face. You cannot whip a spirit's back unless he became flesh and dwelt among us, as John says, John 1.14. The speaker in Isaiah 50 is the second person of the Godhead, who we know today as the person of Jesus Christ. There, it was simply the Lord, the second person of the Godhead. That's not the only verse. Go with me to Zechariah. Zechariah chapter 11, just before the last book of the Hebrew Bible, the book of Malachi, the Italian prophet. If anybody here is Italian, you'll like that. Only half. The book of Zechariah, chapter 11. Now what you have here in chapter 11 is the Lord speaking. Once again, look at verse 4. Thus saith the Lord my God. Feed the flock of slaughter. And then it goes on. What you have here is you have God, which He does other places, identifying Himself as the shepherd who is ministered to His flock. Now when you get over to verse 12, it gets interesting. I mean, the whole thing is interesting, but verse 12. And I said to them, if you think good, give me my price. In other words, give me my wages. And what the Lord was looking for was not money. He was looking for repentance. He was looking for Israel to repent and go back and be obedient to the law that he had given them. That's what he wanted. But he says, give me my price, if not, forbear. In other words, forget it. And so they wait out for my price, 30 pieces of silver. Do I need to help you remember anything? And the Lord said unto me, because Zechariah was acting this out here, he said, cast unto the potter a goodly price, a little bit of sarcasm, that I was appraised of of them. And I took the 30 pieces of silver and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord. Now, what is significant about 30 pieces of silver? In the law, in the Torah, if I was a owner of slaves and oxen and all kinds of animals, And one of my oxen killed, gored to death, another slave owner's slave. I was obligated to pay that slave owner 30 pieces of silver for a dead slave. This was a slap in God's face. What most people don't understand is that the second person of the Godhead consistently throughout Hebrew scriptures was the one who was revealing himself. Remember I said that we're a triunity, God's a triunity? You're looking up here and all you see is my body. You can't see my spirit, you don't see my soul. When God revealed himself to mankind, one member of the Godhead became visible. Two members of the Godhead remain invisible. Jesus said, I show the Father. The Father sent me. You have Jesus interacting throughout the Hebrew scriptures to Israel. the God of Abram, Isaac, and Jacob. That's why Jesus could say that last week before the crucifixion, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that slayest the prophets, how often I would have gathered you as a hen gathers her chicks, but you would not. Speaking as Jehovah God, the God of Israel. So you have in Zechariah chapter 11, the shepherd. And don't forget what Jesus did in the New Testament, by the way. What did he say? I am the what? The good shepherd. God was known as the shepherd of Israel. Jesus says, I'm the shepherd. Don't miss the background of I Am the Good Shepherd, the Hebrew background. Let's move over one more chapter, chapter 12. Again, we want to see who's speaking. And the burden of the word of the Lord for Israel, thus saith Yahweh the Lord. By the way, look what else he says here in this verse. Which stretched forth the heavens, laid the foundations of the earth, and formed the very spirit of man within him. A creator. Now again, he speaks all the way down through here. You can follow the pronouns. What I want you to see is verse 10. And I will pour upon the house of David And upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and supplications, and they shall look upon me whom they pierced. Was God the Father ever pierced? Was God the Holy Spirit ever pierced? No, only God the Son who took on flesh and dwelt among us. The speaker as well in Zechariah 12 is the second person of the Godhead. There's all kinds of stuff like this in the Hebrew scriptures where God reveals his plurality. You know, the verse ends with, and they shall mourn for him as one mourns for an only son. That's the word Yahid again, the one and only son. and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn." Now, we're not in that culture today, but do you know what it meant for a mother to lose her firstborn, her only son? You see, if her husband preceded her in death, Might be a poor illustration today, at any rate, but that firstborn son wears her social security system. She was destitute. So put the picture together. Israel will weep for the one who was pierced as the only son. And they weep bitterly. We understand in Scripture that at the end of the Tribulation, the Jewish people, after going over the Scriptures, pouring over the Scriptures, at the end of the Tribulation, will finally recognize and call for Him that sits on the right hand of God, Psalm 80. They will call for the Messiah to come. And they will make their confession. Confession, by the way, is Isaiah 53, 1-9. and they will embrace Him, and He will come, and He will deliver them from the Antichrist and the armies that are against them, and come and fulfill the covenant." You see, we're dealing with the person of Christ who's basically the one who's interacting with them. This is rich Scripture, but sadly, most Jewish people do not see it. They just do not see it. Because they don't spend time in this book. The rabbis spend time with the myriads of rabbinic commentaries. But they're not in here. They trust in something called the oral law. The writings of the rabbis. that have supplemented the 613 laws of Moses. Why did they hate Jesus? And they did. But why? Well, one, he claimed to be God. That kind of got under their skin a little bit. But the other thing was because Jesus was attacking their system. He attacked the oral law, which was the power system of the Pharisees. He attacked it. You see, in rabbinic theology, they taught that when the Messiah would come, he would help build the fence around that law, the oral law. When Jesus came, he started tearing down the fence. And you get into Matthew 5 through 7, That whole passage of scripture in the Sermon on Mal is dealing with two things, two forms of righteousness. The righteousness of the Pharisees versus the righteousness of God. And he's pitting the two against each other and showing how the one doesn't work. It's not what God intended. We as believers, these things that I shared with you, you don't have to have a degree in rocket science. These things are here. Know them, learn them, so that when God gives you that opportunity to share your faith with a son or daughter of Abraham, you can do so from their scriptures. Share with them that Yeshua is the Messiah of Israel. promised one that they so eagerly looked for and today eagerly wait for His coming. The surprise will be that the one whom they rejected was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the flesh, the incarnation. the virgin birth. I got a lot more I could say. I mean, how do you take 936 pages and compress it into 45 minutes? I don't know. But there's richness there. For me, I've fallen in love with the Scriptures all over again. I've fallen in love with the Lord all over again. because I'm understanding him, not just as the God of love in the New Testament that came and died for our sins. Bye.
The Triunity of God in the Old Testament
Series Guest Speakers
Sermon ID | 311231130392987 |
Duration | 1:01:52 |
Date | |
Category | Sunday Service |
Language | English |
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