To the Jew First, and Also to the Greek
to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." Romans 1:16
The question before us demands an answer.
It is apparent that to some Christians, a simple "because GOD said so" is not sufficient. I say this based on the following personal observations that I have been able to pick up from various people over the last twenty-five years. Some will say, "I don't want to offend"; others have said, "I don't think it's necessary"; while yet others have actually spoken these words to me, "I don't think it's for today."
In addition to the above, here are some other reasons that I believe people use as excuses for not practicing "to the Jew first" in their own lives.
1. There may be some misinformation about The Scriptures.
2. The individual may be unaware that The Bible actually invites us to be a faithful witness to Jewish people.
3. Perhaps there exists either covertly or overtly some form of prejudice (anti-Semitism).
4. An individual may feel that he or she may not have enough knowledge of Holy Writ to be effective for Our Lord.
5. Or, a person might be just plain 'afraid' to speak to a Jewish person about their Messiah.
Before we go any further let's establish the Biblical identity of the Jewish people.
In DEUTERONOMY 7:6 we read:
"FOR THOU (THE JEWISH PEOPLE) ART A 'HOLY' PEOPLE UNTO THE LORD THY GOD: THE LORD THY GOD HATH 'CHOSEN' THEE TO BE A 'SPECIAL' PEOPLE UNTO HIMSELF, ABOVE ALL PEOPLE THAT ARE UPON THE FACE OF THE EARTH."
The usual connotation of a Jewish person is that he or she belongs to 'the chosen people', but in actuality according to our Scripture the Jewish people are not only 'chosen', but they are also 'holy' and 'special'.
In Zechariah 2:8 we read that The LORD Himself tells us, "for he that toucheth you (the Jewish people) toucheth the Apple of His (The LORD's) Eye."
In The Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 10 and verse 6, we read that our LORD Jesus Christ spoke of the Jewish people as "the lost sheep of the house of Israel", and He commissioned His disciples to "go" and "preach" saying , "the kingdom of heaven is at hand."
The Jewish Apostle Saul-Paul who was sent by our LORD to the Gentiles (non-Jewish people) to preach and witness of GOD's love, said:
IN ROMANS 1:16
"For I am not ashamed of The Gospel of Christ: for it is the power of GOD unto salvation to every one that believeth; 'to the Jew first', and also to the Gentile".
Yes, the Apostle Saul-Paul was instructed to go to the Gentiles, yet everywhere he went, according to The Scriptures, he first presented The Good News of Salvation "to the Jew first". Therefore, when we are confronted in Romans 1:16 that The Gospel is to be presented "to the Jew first", and for the most part it is not part and parcel of Christianity, we would naturally ask ourselves, WHY NOT ?
I believe that if you do not place "to the Jew first" in your witness, prayer life, financial support, and in your life as a believer in general; and I repeat, if you do not, you probably do not have a place at all for GOD's 'holy', 'chosen', 'special' PEOPLE, that is, the Jewish people.
Even Jesus our LORD in The Gospel according to Luke 24:46-47 said, "Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ (Messiah) to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His Name among all nations (Gentiles), BEGINNING AT JERUSALEM (the Jewish people)".
Please remember what Romans 3:9 tells us, "For we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin".
SO, WHY TO THE JEW FIRST ?
Because, GOD said so, and this of course is found in Holy Writ: also, because Jewish people should have an opportunity 'TODAY' to hear that Yeshua (Jesus) is The Promised Messiah (Christ). I hope that you are interested in being obedient to GOD's Word.
If you believe that The Gospel of Christ 'IS' the power of GOD unto Salvation - for EVERYONE that believeth, then you must recognize that the Jewish people are part of EVERYONE. Furthermore, The LORD instructs you to place "to the Jew first" in your life of service unto our LORD, that is, in your prayers (see: Romans 10:1) and in your financial support (see: Romans 11:30-31, and Romans 15:26-27).
The LORD Himself has a very special blessing for you as you obey Him. Remember, that if you DON'T put "to the Jew first" in your program of service unto our LORD, you probably will leave the Jewish people totally and absolutely out of your life as a witness.
Once the Biblical principle of "to the Jew first" takes hold of your life and you put into practice the admonition thereof, don't try to reform or convert your Church or Fellowship. Remember, that Jewish Evangelism for all practical purposes is 'NOT' an integral part in the average Church or Fellowship, and you might even find that there is no interest whatsoever in reaching Jewish people with The Gospel. Usually a Church or Fellowship Missionary Budget speaks for itself. However, The LORD might just use you as an instrument to help others in realizing that "to the Jew first" is for TODAY AND NOW.
In Genesis 12:3 we read, "And I will bless them (you) that bless thee (the Jewish people). Take hold of this promise of blessing as you practice "to the Jew first".
The LORD bless you in your new awareness and challenge of "to the Jew first".
Pray For The Peace Of Jerusalem:
They Shall Prosper That Love Thee".
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How can we be reasonably certain about ourselves, as well as others, without being guilty of judging? To answer this, let's take our own case first, there are several "tests" that we can take to determine His presence within us: (all Scripture quotes from KJV Bible). 1. Romans 8:16 tells us: "The Spirit Himself [thus] testifies together with our own spirit, [assuring us] that we are children of God." 2. The entire book of First John was written as a "test" for determining the reality of salvation. Verse three of Chapter one tells us: 3. 1 John 5:13 informs us that the entire Book of 1 John was written so that we can know that we possess eternal life in Christ. Do you know for absolute certainty that, if you were to die tonight, you would go to Heaven? 4. The Word of God teaches that the Bible is incomprehensible to the "natural man"-the unsaved individual. It is a spiritual book and the unsaved person is not only spiritually blind, but 1 Corinthians 2:14 tells us that he "is incapable" of knowing that which is spiritually discerned. Do you understand the Bible? Does it make sense to you and speak to your heart? Does it convict you of your sin and teach you the right way? 5. The Bible is very clear that an unregenerate individual will not seek God (Rom.3:11). Are you painfully aware of your sinful nature and cry out to God from your heart for forgiveness when you sin? If so, this is one of the signs of having been born again. Is your soul, your conscience, sorely vexed when you see sin in the culture
around you? When you see blatant sin in public, or on TV, or in Entertainment,
or anywhere else you encounter it, do you feel a severe vexation in your spirit?
The Bible says of Lot, who was foolish enough to live and do business in Sodom:
"(God) delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:
(For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed
his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds)" [2 Peter 2:7-8]
If your heart is "vexed" by the terrible sin in our daily culture, that
is a good sign you are saved. If your spirit is not vexed by this sin, that
is a good sign you are not saved. 6. The Bible says that an unregenerate individual is a slave of Satan and incapable of doing anything about it (Eph.2:2). Have you been able to turn your back upon this world and its sinful ways? Are all of your close friends Christians? If you have been born again, your unsaved friends will drop you like a bad habit! (Just as an illustration, spray a small amount of "WD-40" lubricant on a surface wet with water and watch how fast the water retreats! A genuine dose of salvation is like the WD-40 where reprobate buddies are concerned.) 7. Do you love--really love--Christians and would rather be with them than anyone else? Can you meet a total stranger, find out that they are a believer, and then have instant fellowship with them? Is there "something" in your heart that draws you to them and establishes a closeness which cannot be explained any other way? [We alluded to this feature in Paragraph 2, above] 8. Do you actually enjoy giving to the Lord's work? Do you give generously of your time, talent, and treasury? 9. Do you sin less now than you did prior to receiving Christ? 10. Have other people seen the "fruit of the Spirit" at work in your life? That is, can they see genuine love, joy, peace, long-suffering, etc., (Gal.5:22), being wrought in and through you by God's Holy Spirit? Do they sense that you are a different person from the one you used to be? 11. Have you experienced persecution because of your faith in Christ? (Former friends who back away because of your testimony for Christ, are a subtle form of persecution). 12. Are you eagerly expecting and anticipating the any-moment return of Jesus Christ for His Church? If you can truthfully answer "yes" to these questions, you are a child of God and the Holy Spirit dwells within you! If you cannot truthfully answer "yes" to these questions, then you are probably not saved and you need to go to the bottom of this page to the Salvation message and go through the steps in honesty and sincereness of heart so you can be saved!"You must be born again"The Bible is very clear on the necessity of a person being "Born Again" if they are to receive eternal life. Jesus coined this term, in John 3:3-7, when he told Nicodemus, "You must be born again" to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Since this necessity is so critical, Satan has attacked it with all his might for two thousand years, causing most "Christian" churches to stop teaching this doctrine, even though no one can be saved without undergoing this wondrous spiritual conversion. However, Satan's most effective weapon against being Born Again has been, and still is, confusion.
Fortunately, Jesus
lovingly made this transformation process very simple, so simple
that even those who are retarded or not educated can understand.
There are several steps to becoming Born Again, listed below:
1.
Understand that ALL
men ever born are sinners. Romans 3:23, says,
"For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God."
This message that all men are sinners is amply repeated
through Scripture
. This means you are a sinner in the eyes
of an angry God, Who must punish all sin. Do you believe you are
a sinner?
2. Since man is an imperfect sinner,
and God is a perfect God, no man can save himself. Jesus made
this fact very plain in Matthew 5:48, when He said, "Be ye,
therefore, perfect, even as your Heavenly Father is perfect."!!!
You must also be very sorry for your sins, and want to have them forgiven. This is known as Repentance. The word Repent means to both be very sorry for your sins, and to want to not sin anymore. Repentance means the desire to turn your life around 180 degrees. This does not mean you will never sin again, but it does mean that sin will become the exception in your life, not the rule. 3. When the sinless Son of God, Jesus Christ, shed His precious blood on the cross at Calvary, He died for the sins of His people in their place as a sacrificial substitute. And in doing so, He suffered the wrath of God the Father upon their sin. He paid the penalty for that sin in His own body and purchased their eternal redemption. This enables Him to give as a free gift His own holiness and righteousness to those who believe in Him and trust Him for salvation. making them absolutely perfect in God. s sight! Romans 6:23 says, "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." None of us deserve to be saved; in His love and mercy God extends grace to those who will believe. Grace is defined as "undeserved favor" and perhaps this little acrostic will help you to remember its meaning: G od. s Riches At Christ. s Expense. [The true meaning of GRACE]
4. In Ephesians 2:8-9, the
Apostle Paul reiterates this teaching that eternal life with God is a
free gift. "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that
not of yourselves: it is the gift of God; Not of works, lest any man should
boast." No man can stand before God in eternity, and boast that they 'earned'
their way to Heaven. All people in Heaven will be there only because of Jesus'
FREE
Gift,
which He obtained from God because of His substitutionary death
sacrifice on the Cross. Rather than punishing each person's individual
sins, God heaped all those sins on Jesus on the Cross Isaiah 53:2-12]
Now, you are probably thinking, 'How can I obtain this free gift of eternal life'? Again, the Bible is not silent. In Acts 16:25-33, the jailer anxiously asked Paul, "What must I do to be saved"? Paul answered "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved ..." verse 31". You must BELIEVE on Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior. To truly believe, you must place your complete faith and trust in Christ and rely upon Him as your only hope of salvation and eternal life. This is a matter of the heart and you cannot hope to deceive God by putting on an act because He knows everything about you. Many people mistakenly think that by merely believing the facts concerning Jesus Christ. s death, burial, and resurrection, they will be automatically be given the gift of eternal life. But such is not the case. Preachers call that a "head knowledge and not a heart knowledge." Salvation is freely given, but only to those who are genuine believers.
5. In John 1:1, 14, we see that
Jesus Christ is God, equal with God, present with God from
before the beginning of time, and the actual Creator of the
Universe. He is 100% God and 100% human at the same time, which
is why He used both titles during His ministry, Son of God and
Son of Man. To become Born Again, you must believe this doctrine about
Jesus Christ.
Verse 14 is most important, the
teaching that Jesus God became man. This teaching becomes a point of
separation between the followers of Christ and Antichrist. In 1 John
4:1-3, we see that anyone who denies that Jesus has come in the
flesh is the spirit of antichrist. That is just what the Gnostics
of that day were saying, i.e., that Jesus the human was not
God Messiah come in the flesh; rather, the 'Christ Consciousness' the
'Messiah' Consciousness, came on Jesus at His baptism and left
Him on the Cross; they believe Jesus was not God and Man. The
New Age Movement and Freemasonry have resurrected this blasphemy with
a vengeance.
6. Isaiah
53:6 foretells exactly what Jesus Christ did for us on the Cross; "the Lord [God
the Father] has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." Praise God!! Only the
Wisdom, Grace, and Power of God Almighty could conceive of such a gracious Plan
of Salvation!! God's Nature is such that sin must be punished.
Period! But, God set up a Plan whereby an innocent
substitute was to be punished instead of the guilty person. In
the Old Testament, God allowed the lamb to be the substitute sacrifice for sin;
Jesus then became the ultimate substitute sacrifice, for all the sins of the
world.
His was the
Perfect sacrifice, that never needs to be repeated, and that saves
all people forever more.
You must believe in, and understand,
this principle of Substitute Punishment, before you can become
Born Again. And, you must believe that Jesus Christ became the
Perfect Substitute Punishment for YOU, before you can become Born
Again.
Now that you understand these
Truths, and believe them for your life, you now need to understand
how you can obtain this FREE Gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ.
After all, if I were to attempt to give you a FREE gift, that
gift would not become yours if you were to refuse to reach out
and take that gift from my hand. So it is here. You must reach
out and take this FREE Gift of Eternal Life from the hand of Jesus
Christ. How is this done?
Through
Saving Faith .
Notice I
said Saving Faith . There are types of
faith that will not get you saved. You may have 'head knowledge' faith
that merely intellectually assents to the facts of Jesus Christ's
person, but that is not Saving Faith. You may be in a 'church'
or a cult that teaches many truths about Jesus Christ, but who
teach that you must do many things to earn your way to Heaven.
This is not Saving Faith. Saving Faith is trusting in Jesus Christ, and Him ALONE, for your Salvation.
If you
think you need to do anything for Salvation except trust in Jesus work on the
cross, you are guilty of violating Ephesians 2:8-9 and Isaiah 53:6.
Most cults
and false Christian religions err at this point; they add things
that are "necessary" for Salvation, or they offer a
counterfeit way to Heaven, i.e., Salvation by Baptism.
Do you want this Gift
of Eternal Life that Jesus left Heaven and died on a cross to
give you? If your answer is, 'Yes', you can immediately have Eternal
Life. Let me clarify exactly what this involves. First, you are going to transfer your trust, your hope of eternal life from what you have been doing to what Jesus Christ has done for you on the cross. Jesus will take your sin and transfer TO YOU His right standing with God the Father, what we call His righteousness . This means that though we have failed repeatedly to keep God's commandments, Christ perfectly obeyed all the laws of God. He lived the perfect life, so He could be the perfect, innocent substitutionary sacrifice that God would accept for your sins, and the sin of the entire world, for all who will believe.
Are
you willing to repent of your sins right now, and become
a responsible member of God's forever family, following Him and serving Him
as a member of His forever family, following Him and serving Him as
a member of His body, the Church? If your heartfelt answer
is, "Yes", then we can go to Him now in prayer, and we can
tell Him that you want to cease trusting in
anything else for Eternal Salvation, especially in what you can do for yourself.
You can place your trust in Him and Him alone for
salvation. Before we pray this simple prayer, I need to point our
that the Lord Jesus Christ is looking at your heart more than
His is listening to your lips. As He promised, "Ye shall
seek Me, and find Me, when [after] ye shall search for
Me with all your heart." (Jeremiah 29:13).
Jesus Christ is right with you right
now. You are not talking to anyone now, but to Him. If you really
want to be Born Again, into the Eternal Family of God through
Jesus Christ, pray this prayer, from your heart. How can you know for sure that you have been born again? Please do not expect any "earth-shaking" experience, because in the majority of cases it comes about in a rather peaceful way, a sense of relief and a load lifted. There will be no fireworks or brass bands playing, just a wonderful calm that is deep down inside. But with the passing of time, I have found that one of the best indicators of the New Birth is a genuine understanding of the Word of God. Prior to being Born Again, the "natural man", as the Bible calls him, (a lost person), cannot understand the Bible because it is spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2:14). Indeed, it is foolishness to him! So when the Word begins to make sense, to speak to your heart, and convict you of sin in your life, it is a very good indicator that you have the Holy Spirit of God residing within you. You see, a Christian obtains a new spiritual nature by the New Birth, but he does not get rid of the old nature he was born with. That is why it is so vitally important that we "grow in grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 3:18). We must cooperate with the Holy Spirit as we walk through this sinful and spiritually defiling world around us. The Holy Spirit literally takes up residence within us when we are Born Again and will never leave us nor forsake us. Another wonderful evidence of genuine salvation is found in the "fruit of the Spirit" (Galatians 5:22) that will take place in our daily lives as the Holy Spirit works within us. His presence will be manifested to the outside world by means of the love, joy, peace, longsuffering, faith, etc., they see in us! Then, the Bible tells us in Romans 8:16 that, "The Spirit itself (lit. Himself) beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God." In other words, the Holy Spirit living deep within us tells us that we belong to God.
But, He has done
much more!! In Revelation 3:20, Jesus promised, "Behold, I stand at
the door and knock [He has been knocking at the door of your heart,
and you have just opened that door to let Him in]; if anyone
hears and listens and heeds My voice, and opens the door I WILL come in
to him and will eat with him, and he will eat with
Me." Jesus Christ has just entered INTO YOUR HEART through the work
of the Holy Spirit, to live in your heart for the rest of your
life!! What great news, for now we have the same Holy Spirit power
within us that raised Jesus from the dead [Romans 8:11].
In fact, read Romans 8 to see all the advantages we have because
the Holy Spirit indwells us daily. |
