“Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?”
“They were saying this, testing Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him.
“But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground.
“But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”
“Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground.” (Joh 8:5-8)
Journal,
It was known and recorded by the prophets that the Jewish nation would turn her back on Jesus. The Lord spoke to this when He said,
“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)
According to the prophets, and the apostles, and the Lord Jesus Himself, there will be a moment in history when Jerusalem calls upon Jesus as Lord God and Messiah. But a problem remains. Jerusalem has had a long history of killing those sent to her from God Almighty.
If we keep this issue in mind it may help us understand what the Lord may have written on the ground when the Pharisees drug the woman before Him.
Could it have been…
‘MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN’
Keep in mind that this is merely a supposition on my part. However, it does seem to fit the prideful attitude of the Pharisees and others of the leadership in Israel.
The ‘mene, mene, tekel, upharsin’ story reaches back to King Nebuchadnezzar’s son, Belshazzar. Belshazzar failed to learn the lesson that his father had been taught concerning the
Lord God being over all the kingdoms of the earth; that God alone raises up and brings down rulers. (We would do well to learn that lesson ourselves.)
Belshazzar in his heart filled with pride held a feast for thousands of his nobles. During the feast he had the gold vessels brought out that were taken from the temple in Jerusalem, and had his guests drink from them. While doing this everyone was praising the gods of Babylon.
Then it happens –
“Suddenly the fingers of a man’s hand emerged and began writing opposite the lampstand on the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace, and the king saw the back of the hand that did the writing. Then the king’s face grew pale and his thoughts alarmed him, and his hip joints went slack and his knees began knocking together. “ (Dan 5:5-6)
The writing was in Chaldee but no one could bring an interpretation, that is, until someone remembered Daniel. When Daniel came, he reminded Belshazzar of the lesson that his father had been taught –
“Yet you, his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, even though you knew all this, but you have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of His house before you, and you and your nobles, your wives and your concubines have been drinking wine from them; and you have praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood and stone, which do not see, hear or understand. But the God in whose hand are your life-breath and all your ways, you have not glorified.” (Dan 5:22-23)
Daniel interpreted what the hand of God had written. The translation of mene, mene, tekel, upharsin, can be literally translated as, ‘He hath numbered, He hath numbered.’
Hear it from Daniel –
“This is the interpretation of the message:
“’MENE’–God has numbered your kingdom and put an end to it.
” ‘TEKEL’–you have been weighed on the scales and found deficient.
“‘PERES’–your kingdom has been divided and given over to the Medes and Persians.” (Dan 5:26-28) — Note: Peres is the singular form of ‘Pharsin’. (The sense is that the kingdom would be divided.)
Now let’s return to Israel during the time of Christ and afterwards.
The Struggle Through the Centuries
There is a struggle in Israel of which many are not aware. Believe it or not, the struggle is between ultra-religious Jews and secular Jews. Politicians are caught in the middle. And while the religious Jews make up only 20% of the population in Israel, they wield far greater influence than their numbers show.
The issue is over power. An intense hatred exists among the orthodox Jews, especially those of the ultra-conservative sects, for anyone who is not of their sect. This hatred is essentially directed to the secular Jew. In some instances it is more intense against the secular Jew than it is against Gentiles. Secular Jews are considered traitors.
But these ultra-conservative groups also have war going on with one another – even over such things as whose rabbis are the greatest, and such like. So the hatred is wide-spread.
In any event, infighting among Jews has coursed its way through history, with one group accusing the other of being heretics. A great many Christians Jews were slaughtered in the Bar Kochba rebellion in 132-135 A.D., because the Christians would not recognize Bar Kochba as Messiah. This is only a sampling of blood-letting among the Jews.
Secular Jews on the other hand do not wish to be brought under the austere dictatorship of the ultra-orthodox rabbis. A great many Jews in Israel today will not even step inside a synagogue. Does that surprise you? Israel has one of the highest percentages of atheism among the nations today.
Where Does Jesus Fit the Picture
And while we may think that the secular sector of Israel has little interest in Jesus Christ, this is not so. The fact is that secular Jews are really more so against orthodox Judaism, especially in its more radical forms, than against anything else. Did you know that the Orthodox Jews are agitated over secular Jews who put up Christmas trees? The Christmas tree business in Israel is flourishing.
There is a cue card here. A little known fact is that there is a Jesus revival sweeping Israel. Not a revival in the sense that Americans understand it, but a revival of wanting to know more about Jesus.
According to Pinchas E. Lapide, the recently deceased orthodox professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, there is a “Jesus wave” passing through Israel. The wave is not about
a Catholic Jesus or a Protestant Jesus or a Charismatic Jesus. It is about the Jesus of the land, the Jesus of the gospels.
The ultra-conservative orthodox groups are not very happy about this. Talmudic Judaism has erased Jesus from the history of the Jewish people, but the tables are now turning on them. The people want to know!
It remains hard for Christians to understand this enmity in Israel. The reason is that most people in the west know so little about the third period of Judaism. The third period is considered to begin with the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. up to our present. It essentially forms itself around rabbinic Judaism. The rabbis considered themselves the last mouthpiece of God, even exceeding that of Moses and the prophets.
It is good to know something of what is called the temple periods.
The first temple period concerned itself with the original temple in Jerusalem, up to the scattered tribes in the Old Testament. Second temple Judaism began with Nehemiah and the repopulation of Israel, and runs up to the destruction of 70 A.D.
Historians tell us there were twenty-four distinct Judaism’s during that time. The third period picks up from there.
But we need to know a bit more about how…
The Enmity Continues
The enmity against God Himself reaches back to the times of Jesus and much further. It reaches back to the fall of Adam.
But as for Israel’s enmity, Jesus and John the Baptist called the hate element in Israel, “a brood of vipers.” Jesus said of them,
“If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated Me and My Father as well.” (John 15:24)
So the hate element has always been there. It continues to this day.
If you know anything about the scribes and Pharisees, about the traditions of the elders, or about Talmudic Judaism, then you already know something about the ultra- orthodox groups in Israel today. They are the same. They are of the same spirit as those who renounced Jesus so strongly.
Their hatred for Jesus Christ and for all things Christian is often covered up, but it always lies just below the surface. In fact if it came to the need for a blood transfusion, this group of Jews would prefer to die than accept the blood of a Christian, or of any Gentile, or even the blood of a secular Jew. They believe other bloods are defiled. They cannot take a chance on defiling their own sacred “divine” blood.
Does this sound strange? It shouldn’t. It was pretty much the same during the time of Christ. Even the apostles had to process this. It wasn’t easy.
When Peter was sent to the house of Cornelius, he said,
“You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a man who is a Jew to associate with a foreigner or visit him; and yet God has shown me that I should not call any man unholy or unclean.” (Cf. Acts 10)
Keep in mind that the Law of Moses never said any such thing about entering the house of a foreigner. This came from the traditions of the elders. It later became encoded in Talmudic writings. Even back then the rabbis had a choke hold on the people in Israel.
This helps us understand why Jesus went outside the religious establishment to minister to those who were considered outcasts.
As for the religious powers, Jesus called them what they were. He said,
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.”
If you would like to see the dressing down that Jesus gave the “hate” element in Israel, take time to read Matthew 13.
It was immediately following this dressing down, that Jesus said,
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem … your house is being left to you desolate.”
For a better understanding of ultra-orthodox Judaism, let me share about some of the …
Beliefs held by the ultra-orthodox in Israel
(1) They forbid Jewish men to listen to a woman singing in a choir or solo, regardless of what she is singing. They believe the voice of a woman is adultery. (Many Talmudic teachings are against women in general. These teachings are very much in favor today.)
Compare this to Paul:
“For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal 3:28 – Peter adds that husband and wife are fellow heirs of the grace of life.)
(2) They believe that when they come to power, all Christian churches are to be destroyed and all non-Jews to be expelled from the country, including secular Jews.
(3) Haredim rabbis often teach that the Holocaust was a well deserved divine punishment for failure to keep Talmudic studies. (Among other things.)
(4) Their hatred for non-Jews comes from their continuous cabalistic tradition. They are much into magic. (They try to hide this fact from westerners.)
(5) For them the gravest sin is for a Jew to deny Judaism. The Jew who denies Judaism becomes a Canaanite, and to kill such a person is an act of righteousness. (Thus we see their hatred against the secular Jew.)
(6) The doctor Baruch Goldstein who slaughtered 20 Muslim worshippers, including children, in Hebron in 1994, is considered a saint by this group and is seen as their intercessor in heaven.
Note: Perhaps it should be said that what this ultra-religious hate group may not realize, is that they are doing pretty much the same as did Hitler in his own hate against the Jews. This shows how very wicked and prideful the heart can become when it gives no place for Jesus Christ.
The Battle is On
So — What is it going to take to turn the eyes of Israel to Jesus? The answer isn’t as difficult as it may seem. It is clearly set forth in the prophets, that the Messiah would not return to His place until Israel acknowledges her guilt and seeks His face. The Lord said,
“In their affliction they will earnestly seek Me.” (Hos5:15)
Jesus told the rejecters,
“I go away, and you will seek Me, and will die in your sins; where I am going, you cannot come.” (John 8:21)
The fact is that Israel is going to desperately need a Savior. When the moment comes, they will cry out to Jesus. The apostle said,
“The deliverer will come from Zion, He will remove ungodliness from Jacob. This is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins.” (Rom11:26-27)
And again,
“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 OVER HIM, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.” (Cf. Zech12)
What did Jesus write on the ground? Could it be that God’s hand once again was writing, ‘Your days are numbered.’
Just something to think about.
Listen to this wonderful song about Jesus the Messiah of Israel.
In Christ Always,
Buddy
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