“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. Behold, your house is being left to you desolate! For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, ‘BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!'” (Mat 23:37-39 NASB)
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Journal,
It is important to place the apostolic writings in their proper role. The apostles were not simply apostles to the Church. They were also apostles to Israel. It is in this sense that the apostles took up the mantle of the prophets of old. Jesus said to them, “I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others [the prophets] have labored and you [apostles] have entered into their labor.” (John4:38)
The prophets spoke to the coming of Messiah. Their work was completed with John the Baptist. They were His beforehand servants. The apostles spoke after the fact, that is, Israel’s Messiah had come, had ministered to the people, had been rejected, was crucified, rose from the dead, ascended on high and is now at the right hand of the glory on high. The final atonement for sin had been offered. Temple sacrifices were now null and void. The apostles were His witnesses.
A second part of the picture involves the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70 A.D. Israel’s transitional time was over. With the destruction of the temple Israel no longer would exist as a nation and no more temple sacrifices would be possible.
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The judgment in 70 a.d. had its centering on the rejection of Jesus Christ. Israel’s house was left desolate. The land was now under a curse. Israel’s role as a viable nation would disappear entirely, that is, until May 14, 1948.
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Both Israel’s prophets and Israel’s apostles issued this time piece of Jerusalem.
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Hence our beginning Scripture where Jesus tells Jerusalem that her house is being left desolate, and the one to follow. Listen carefully:
“So you are witnesses and approve of the deeds of your fathers; because it was they who killed them [the prophets], and you build their tombs. For this reason the wisdom of God said, ‘I will send to them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and some they will persecute, so that the blood of all the prophets, shed since the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation.” (Cf. Luke 11:46-51)
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This is a matter of redemption history.
Why would the blood of the prophets and the apostles be charged against that generation? It would be due to the greater sin of their leaders. If anyone should have recognized Jesus Christ as Israel’s Messiah, it would be that generation. All the prophets from ancient time spoke of the days of Christ. They set forth both his rejection and His sufferings. The very time of Messiah had been prophesied by Daniel.
The deeper side is that when the high priest and the elders of Israel rejected Jesus Christ, they were rejecting God Himself. The blood that ran through the veins of Jesus was the very blood of God. And because they had rejected God, all that was left was a judgment. Israel would be given a transitional time of forty years for entering into the new covenant of Christ. The sword would come in 70 a.d. Believing Israel would be separated from unbelieving Israel.
Jesus said to Pilate,
“You would have no authority over Me, unless it had been given you from above; for this reason he who delivered Me to you has the greater sin.” (Jn19:11)
The greater sin was the sin of knowledge. Many of the leaders knew that Jesus was the Messiah. A careful search of the gospels shows this to be the case. (It wasn’t the godly leadership that rejected Jesus. It was those of the house of Satan.)
And so we hear in the book of Hebrews this final warning:
“For if we go on sinning willfully [Jewish people by rejecting Jesus] after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries.
The apostolic writer goes on to say,
“Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who said, ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay.’
And again,
‘The Lord will judge His people.’ It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Cf. Heb10:26-31)
The book of Hebrews has to do with whole of the Jewish peoples. It was written as a final warning not long before the destruction of Jerusalem and of the temple in 70 A.D. The temple went up in a fiery judgment. The transition was over. The gospel had been sent to the Jew first. The new covenant no longer have a Jewish exclusiveness to it. It would belong to the people of the world.
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The words of a book.
God speaks in Isaiah, saying,“On that day the deaf will hear words of a book, and out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind will see. The afflicted also will increase their gladness in the Lord, and the needy of mankind will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.” (Isa 29:18,19)
This prophecy reaches across the church age and into the future. While the book has been releasing its treasures throughout the church age, it will also fulfill its purpose for the Jewish peoples in the final days of the age and into the future.
Two thousand years ago and old man prophesied over the child Jesus and His mother, saying,“Behold, this Child is appointed for THE FALL and RISE of many in Israel, and for a sign to be opposed.” (Luke 2:34)
The fall came with the rejection of Jesus. The rise comes with the acceptance. The cross was a sign that has been opposed by Rabbinic Judaism throughout the church age. What will bring about the rise in Israel? Listen to another prophet:
“And in that day I will set about to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.” (Zech12:9,10)
The testimony remains in place today.
Christianity was not some upstart religion to be counted among the various movements in Judaism of the day. The testimony of God, the testimony of Moses, the testimony of the prophets, of David, of John the Baptist, the testimony of nature itself, the wonders and miracles, and the testimony of those Jews who had truly received Him as Lord and Savior, all bore witness against those who would reject Him. No further testimony was needed.
And so, where are we in redemption history? Earlier I pointed to a date, May 14, 1948. Israel had to take her place once again among the nations. The rejection of Jesus took place in Jerusalem. The acceptance of Jesus Christ will also take place in Jerusalem. Jerusalem is God’s time clock.
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“For I say to you [Jerusalem], from now on you will not see Me until you say, ‘BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!'”
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Take time to listen to the song, ‘Jerusalem.’
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Think about it.
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Blessings,
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Buddy
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