The Jewish Final Solution to the World's Problem - The Woes of the Jews Worldwide, Part II

[0:00] Translation is available. Many have the New American Standard, which we usually use, but you're welcome and encouraged to follow along with whatever translation you have. Gary's going to come and read for us now, and we invite you to follow along the text and what translation that might be.

[0:16] We'll turn to John's Gospel, Chapter 4. Gary? We'll be looking at verses 1 through 26. John 4.

[0:39] Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, although Jesus himself was not baptizing, but his disciples were, he left Judea and went away again into Galilee.

[1:02] And he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to the city of Samaria called Zechar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.

[1:17] And Jacob's well was there. So Jesus, being wearied from his journey, was sitting thus by the well.

[1:28] It was about the sixth hour. There came a woman of Samaria to drink water. Jesus said to her, Give me a drink. For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.

[1:43] Therefore the Samaritan woman said to him, How is it that you, being a Jew, ask me for a drink, since I am a Samaritan woman?

[1:56] For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Jesus answered and said to her, If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, Give me a drink, You would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.

[2:17] She said to him, Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do you get that living water? You are not greater than our father Jacob, are you?

[2:32] Who gave us the well, and drank of it himself, and his sons, and his cattle. Jesus answered and said to her, Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again.

[2:48] But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst. But the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.

[3:03] The woman said to him, Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty, nor come all the way here to draw.

[3:14] He said to her, Go call your husband and come here. The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, You have correctly said, I have no husband.

[3:31] For you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband. And this you have said truly. The woman said to him, Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.

[3:47] Our fathers worshipped in this mountain. And you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.

[3:59] Jesus said to her, Woman, believe me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, will you worship the Father.

[4:11] You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know. For salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.

[4:31] For such people the Father seeks to be his worshippers. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

[4:44] The woman said to him, I know that Messiah is coming, he who is called Christ. When that one comes, he will declare all things to us.

[5:01] Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am he. simply an electrifying passage.

[5:18] And if you look at the text, whether you have a New American Standard or whatever you have, when Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am.

[5:30] The he is italicized. Masculine pronoun isn't there in the original Greek. And this is simply one more instance of our Lord claiming deity when he refers to himself as the I am.

[5:44] You can just leave the he off. It is, of course, understood. There's so much in this passage that commands our attention, but I simply want to focus upon one brief aspect of it.

[5:55] And that is the phrase that our Lord expressed when he said salvation is of the Jews or is from the Jews. I spent some time, perhaps a number of months, since we've considered this passage briefly, and we're not going to go into it now in any depth at all.

[6:13] But I do want to call out of the passage that expression because it is so key and so germane to our whole subject, which we have given the general title The Jewish Solution to the World's Problems.

[6:31] And this was a series that we began almost a year ago, and we are continuing to work our way through it, focusing upon the strategic nature of the children of Israel as God's chosen people for the outworking of his plan and program in all of human history.

[6:48] When he said salvation is from the Jews, there's no question about the validity of it. But, a biting irony is in the failure of even the Jews, particularly the Jews of this day, to be able to understand or recognize the validity of that statement.

[7:12] In fact, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if in reading a passage like this to many Jews today, they might just shake their heads in disbelief and say, you know, it is people like you saying things like that about salvation being of the Jews that contributes to us getting into all the trouble that we're in.

[7:30] But nonetheless, they cannot shake that responsibility because salvation is of the Jews. The word salvation simply means deliverance, rescue. And it is talking about rescuing from one's greatest enemy, which is our sin.

[7:51] And this is precisely what the angel had in mind when he told Mary, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sin.

[8:05] The Jew, even though he may not acknowledge it, and even though many Protestants may not acknowledge it, the Jew is the linchpin for all the world and is the bullseye in the target of humanity for the restoration and restitution of the entirety of planet Earth.

[8:30] This is precisely what Peter was talking about in Acts chapter 3 when he talked about Christ returning to heaven whom heaven must receive until the times of restitution or restoration, which of course we make synonymous with the establishment of that kingdom.

[8:48] That's what Christ is going to establish when he returns. The Jew of Jesus' day understood very well the concept of a promised Messiah.

[9:01] In fact, this is probably pretty safe to say that for centuries the Jew was probably the only one who did understand the concept of a promised Messiah.

[9:13] They had awaited his coming for 4,000 years since God originally made that promise of a deliverer to Adam and Eve. They knew nothing about Jewishness per se because there were no Jews then.

[9:29] There were only two people who multiplied after the fall. But in time Jewishness would emerge and the first one designated as such would actually not be called a Jew he would be called a Hebrew.

[9:46] And from the ancient language that was spoken back then the word Hebrew or Haburu simply meant the one who had crossed over.

[9:57] Abraham was an anomaly in his day because he was a stranger and a foreigner and he had come all the way from Ur of the Chaldees migrated under the plan and program of God get you out of this country and away from your father's house to a land that I will show thee.

[10:15] So Abraham began following where God led him and eventually he ended up in the land of Canaan which is today known as the modern land of Israel.

[10:27] And there was a time when God said to Abraham lift up your eyes now and all this land will I give unto thee. And of course it is a bone of contention today between the descendants of Abraham both of whom are legitimate descendants but one came through a bond woman Hagar and one came through the free woman Sarah one is Isaac and the other is Ishmael the conflict began thousands of years ago and today it is intensifying in a number of ways particularly there in the Mideast.

[11:00] Abraham and Sarah of course begat Isaac Isaac and Rebekah then begat Jacob Jacob becomes father to the twelve sons and the fourth born son of whom will come from Leah will be named Judah the tribe of Judah and Judah will be his name J-U-D-A-H and over time it will be shortened particularly during the Babylonian period when they went into captivity those who were of the tribe of Judah and actually the tiny tribe of Benjamin incorporated with it was to be kept separate and distinct from the ten northern tribes earlier referred to as Israel who had already been carried into Assyrian captivity but it was the south that was most important because the south was where Jerusalem was Jerusalem and the temple and the priesthood and everything that made

[12:03] Jewishness what it was was embedded there in Jerusalem and when they were carried away into Babylonian captivity by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC these people of the tribe of Judah came to be known as Jews and it's spelled English wise J-E-W-S and it has stuck with them ever since so they are throughout the world referred to as Jews the most distinguishing characteristic of the Jews was to be or at least was supposed to be their monotheism they were an anomaly throughout the ancient world in a number of ways one of which was they insisted that there was one God and one God only and for all the pagan nations around them of which there were several they could not abide that concept at all the idea that there was just one God was unthinkable because creation involved too much responsibility and too much care and attention that needed to be given to everything for any one God to be able to handle a job like that so they had to have several gods and each one was appointed different responsibilities they had a God or a goddess of love a God of the sea a God of the fields a God of the sky a God of this and a God of that and the Jew would come along and say no no no no there's just one God and he's in charge of all of it well they could not conceive of that at all so they engaged in what was referred to as idolatry the worship of several deities and gods and they would make sacrifices to them and appease them and beseech them for good favor and try not to offend the gods you see there was so much superstition coupled with so much demonism because when

[14:07] Paul writes to the Corinthians he makes it very clear that when people think they are worshipping these gods these deities behind the statues and the idols they're not worshipping gods at all they're actually worshipping demons and they don't even know it for demonology is behind idolatry and the children of Israel were constantly subject to idolatry they kept falling into it and during the time of the judges they would become idolatrous and they would become dependent upon another people who would overrun them and make them slaves and then God would raise up another deliverer and these were called judges Samson was one of them Gideon was another there were several judges and each time they would go through a cycle they would be revived spiritually they would come back into a true relationship with God they would scrap all of the idols and everything and then give it another generation they'd fall back into it again and the whole concept of idolatry is based upon two things one is you beseech the so called powers of an idol in order to get something from the

[15:22] God who is behind that idol or represented by that idol that you cannot get from the true God or that he will not give you so you appeal to another God in other words the idea is I think I can get a better deal and strange as it may seem to so-called enlightened people of our day that was the common thinking then not only that but it was also fostered by just a lot of superstition so the children of Israel were constantly falling into idolatry and there was no one with less justification for that than the Israelites because they had this incredible history of God coming through for them in so many ways going all the way back to their exodus from Egypt the plagues and all that involved coming out of Egypt finally God was going to become so well I guess we would say that the string had run out

[16:26] God's long suffering came to an end and he raised up a prophet several prophets perhaps the chiefest of which was Jeremiah and he gave Jeremiah a message and the message was Jeremiah you go and preach to the people of Judah that if they don't forsake their idolatry and get back in fellowship with me I am going to bring a pagan heathen nation who is more idolatrous than they are against them and I'm going to give Israel into their hand and they are going to utterly destroy them they're going to tear down your beautiful temple they're going to take all of the items of furniture all of the gold all of the trophies and they're going to carry them off to a foreign land Jeremiah delivered the message and the message was not received Jeremiah was vilified mistreated thrown into a pit threatened intimidated they burned his scroll the original scroll of

[17:31] Isaiah that he wrote and God told him to write another one and he did so in 70 AD God made good on his threat and here came Nebuchadnezzar knocking at the door they threw a siege around the city of Jerusalem nobody got in nobody got out they starved them out just like the Assyrians had done in the north to the city of Samaria and finally the city fell and they carried off thousands and thousands of Jews made them walk all the way back to the land of Babylon in the east and there they're going to be for 70 years and God even told them how long they were going to be there and it is as if God said after you've been a prisoner and a captive in a foreign land for 70 years I think you will have learned your lesson and they did but that generation had pretty much died off and it was a new generation that was coming back under

[18:33] Nehemiah rebuilding the wall reestablishing the city and things were going to continue on a pace for several hundred years there would be a time of the Maccabees fighting against an oppressing enemy Judas Maccabeus and the wars of the Jews of which Josephus writes and this took place in the intertestamental period between the Old and New Testament because you see when the Old Testament closes and the New Testament begins there's a lapse of 400 years between them and it isn't as if nothing was happening there was a lot happening but it's not recorded in scripture unless you embrace the Apocrypha like our Roman Catholic friends do they incorporate the Apocrypha into the text of scripture and here's where you find those 400 missing years and particularly in the books of the Maccabees and some of the others which we do not accept as canonical and neither do the Jews but our Roman Catholic friends do so that's where you find more enemies coming against the

[19:34] Jews and it's for the same reason it's because of the corruption particularly the spiritual corruption because you see every entity every entity just like the law of entropy every entity whether it is moral spiritual political or what always tends to degrade that's that law of second second law of thermodynamics works in every way not just rust on automobiles but in morals as well the tendency is to decline to go down and the only thing that will lift it up is a reversal a revival a new birth which is by the way what this nation is in desperate need of right now and Israel underwent several of these revivals they'd tear down the idols and people would get right with God and they would start reading the scriptures and get back on track again and that would last for a while and then they would lapse back into the same old rut and this was repeated time and time again this is exactly what was going on when Jesus came on the scene and about the well he didn't begin his ministry until he was 30 years old and it only lasted for about 3 years but the thing that he most soundly condemned in the religious establishment during that time was their corruption and their hypocrisy and he constantly called them out for it blind leaders of the blind and of course he paid a very dear price because he crossed the religious establishment and they vowed to get him and humanly speaking they did so we've already noted a little bit about the history of Israel and how it unfolded

[21:29] Israel is going to be invaded multiple times trodden down of nearly every major army existing over the next several hundred years and when you come to the opening of the New Testament Israel is under the Roman boot and not only is Israel under the Roman boot everyone is under the Roman boot because Rome ruled the world and she had tentacles that went out everywhere the Roman army was stationed all throughout the Mediterranean area and nobody could give any serious thought to even thinking about challenging them militarily because Rome and its army was so well fortified so well organized so well entrenched so well experienced so well equipped nobody could stand against them and the little tiny nation of Israel if you look at a map you'll see that Israel is the hub of three continents Africa

[22:29] Europe and Asia and Israel is smack dab right in the middle you almost have to go through Israel to get anywhere from one of those continents to another and armies conquering armies were traipsing through Israel repeatedly and this went on for hundreds of years thousands of years and at the time Christ appeared on the scene Israel was under that Roman boot Israel was an occupied nation and there were Roman soldiers soldiers in Israel just like we had American soldiers in Germany after the war was over and Japan after the war was over we were called occupation troops and we were there because the host nation didn't have any choice we imposed ourselves upon them because they were the vanquished and we were the victors you know we still have troops in Japan we still have troops in Germany after all this time and the war has been over for a long long time so you see the implications of these situations just go on for decades in some cases there were revolts and insurrections by the Jews against the Roman conquerors and occupiers and that was an ongoing affair

[23:50] Rome was deeply despised by all loyal Jews acts of sabotage and revolt were common between the Testaments the Maccabean revolt occurred the last revolt came and resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD this was the one that Jesus prophesied when he cried over Jerusalem and said you do not know the time of your visitation if only you knew but now they are hidden from you and this was on Palm Sunday when Jesus went into Jerusalem and he said the time is coming when armies are going to surround you and tread you down and you will be subjected to a foreign power it took a generation for that to come to pass after Christ was resurrected but in 70 AD Roman

[24:50] General Titus came against Jerusalem leveled it sacked it there were somewhere upwards of 800,000 Jews massacred many of them were crucified thousands of them were crucified until they ran out of wood for building the crosses and that was in 70 AD and connection with that there were about a thousand who got away they fled to the south through the Judean desert and they ended up down near the Dead Sea just west on the western coast of the Dead Sea down near what would have been at one time the area of Sodom and Gomorrah and there was a geographical location of a place called

[25:53] Masada M-A-S-A-D-A I don't know if you've ever seen the movie or not I would recommend it I think it was Peter O'Toole who played the part of Flavius what was his name Flavius Silva Flavius Silva was a lieutenant of the Caesar he was a lieutenant of Titus and he was charged with the responsibility of rooting out and defeating this last element of Jews who had fled from Jerusalem and there were about a thousand of them and they had taken refuge in this mountaintop stronghold called Masada and when we were there in 1990 we were able to walk up that called the snake path and it is a winding path very precipitous high drop offs on either side and it's a very formidable fortress and you get clear up to the top of it and the view is magnificent and there were a thousand

[26:56] Jews that made their way up to this ancient fortress and it was originally built by Herod the Great and was intended to be one of his summer palaces I want to share with you some things from Dr.

[27:16] George Adam Smith's historical geography of the Holy Land about Masada it's just a fascinating place and when we were there in 1990 and were able to make that trek up there and now they've got a cable car you can take a cable car ride up but it was just fascinating it is a plateau on the top a plateau almost 700 yards long and in breadth varying from 180 yards on the north to 250 on the south and Gedi was clear to the north the ruins on Masada are the gateway already noticed the debris of the wall running around the edge of the plateau and on the latter cisterns and tombs remains of a castle and palace a chapel with the apt standing curious mosaics on the wall they point the pointed arch of the gateway in the chapel or Byzantine or later the rest of the ruins are Herodian with them the real history of Masada is bound up it's just fascinating because there was no way that the

[28:22] Roman soldiers could get to them because the only path up there was wide enough and passable enough for just like one or two people at a time and the defenders could just pick them off one at a time as they tried to come through there so the thing was absolutely impregnable and you know what the Romans did this just shows you the Roman determination and how they would not be denied this one final victory but for this one holdout this one holdout Israel was completely decimated and Rome was vindicated except for this one place and if you want to go back to Rome as the victor with some real bragging rights you've got to do the job thoroughly and Flavius took that as a challenge and you can still see it to this day you can walk up but what they did and it took them years to complete it they built a ramp from the ground all the way up to the walls of Masada built a ramp wide enough deep enough to pull a siege instrument up on huge wooden wheels with a large battering ram in it on a big log that they could use to swing and break down the walls with an incredible undertaking and they scraped dirt and sand and rock from all around the area and kept piling it up it was an incredible engineering feat and they did this without bulldozers without steam shovels this was this was talk about labor intensive this was incredible and all the while the Jews that were holed up there had it cushy because they had an endless supply of water and grain and dried food that they could last for years and years they even had a cultivation up there so they could raise crops and the rainfall was not much but it was adequate so let me share this with you it's quite remarkable it says that Herod had built a richly firmest palace on the west and florid with stones of several colors the mosaic still found the top of the hill which was the fat soil he reserved for cultivation he hewed many reservoirs for rain and laid up in caverns immense quantities of wine oil pulse and dates it is said that these stores were still in good condition a century later when Masada along with

[31:08] Macaris and Hyrcania fell into the hands of the Sikari the most fanatic of the Jewish patriots in the war of independence in AD 70 when Jerusalem fell a band of them being the last survivors of the garrison fled with Eleazar to Masada they might well have thought of themselves secure in a fortress so remote and standing so furnished in the midst of so waterless a country but they had Rome to deal with and by the way this is in the area which is the lowest spot on the face of the globe this is in the Dead Sea area and the temperature year round varies between 110 and 130 degrees and it's very very dry you can engage in activity and you don't perspire because the heat is so intense and it is so dry that by the time the perspiration beads on your skin it evaporates it's amazing

[32:13] Palestine is stamped all over with proofs of the power of the Romans yet nowhere are you so forced into admiration of their genius as when you stand on that dead sea coast below Masada between their two camps or mark the wall they built around the rock or the white ramp they raised against it they later rode across a waterless desert brought their siege engines down cliffs and fought for months miles away from water and forage it was just an incredible undertaking and yet this was the gutting out determination of these Romans that they were not going to let those Jews get the best of them and go back to Rome as a laughing stock well we couldn't completely defeat them they had this one whole no no they were going for the whole enchilada well they probably didn't have enchiladas back then but you get the general was Flavius Silva a lieutenant of Titus on the earthen bank on the promontory he raised another bank of stones and on that a tower plated with iron this brought the battering ram on a level with the edge of the plateau and it breached

[33:25] Herod's wall and by the way the defenders up on top are while they are building this ramp they are hurling down boulders and arrows on them trying to discourage them and keep them from being successful but the Romans kept plodding away and you can go there today and see all of those ruins that ramp is still there you can go up the ramp it's amazing you just stand there and visualize what that was like nineteen hundred and forty two years ago and it's all there the defenders built an inner wall that was but a trough of wood packed with earth and the blows of the ram only made this more compact Silva set it on fire at first the flames were blown on the besiegers but the wind changing the fire coursed through the whole wall the Romans let it burn then returned to their camps for the night next morning they planted their ladders and prepared the assault they knew they were right at the wall all they had to do was take their ladders up there throw them against the wall and send them in with their swords over and they would decimate the civilians that were there but when they got to the wall there was no opposition everything was quiet what's going on one by one these Roman soldiers climbed up the ladder and over the wall expecting to be met with all kinds of resistance in a last ditch effort but nobody met them they couldn't figure out what was going on the place had already turned into a graveyard 970 were already dead when they got there this was not exactly a suicide but in part at least close to it and what they had done they knew they would not be able to withstand the Roman attack it would only be a question of time and they would be upon them and that meant that their women would be violated and the men would be tortured and the children would be probably sold into slavery and some of them would be captive back to Rome and made slaves or examples of and these were people who could very easily have originated the phrase that Patrick

[36:23] Henry used so well give me liberty or give me death and they chose death and when they knew that the Romans were within a short time of overtaking them they devised a scheme and they drew lots we would call it drawing straws as to who was to kill whom and a certain number of men were designated as executioners of their own people and they had to put to death their own family their own wife their own children each one was responsible for killing their own family their own relatives and it got all the way down to where there were just ten men there were just corpses lying everywhere bleeding everyone dead and it got down to where there were ten men and they drew straws and one man had the responsibility of killing the other nine and then he would take his own life so the

[37:33] Romans were victorious but it was a very hollow victory and it wouldn't be right to say that there were no survivors because there were and what there were was two women who now met the Romans that had hidden themselves with five children and these were the only survivors of the garrison of nearly one thousand and in all of Jewish history this is their Alamo this is that one symbol of determination and desire for freedom that stands out most in the minds of the Jewish people to this day so much so that when young men and women are inducted into the

[38:40] Israeli defense force they take them all up on top of Masada and make sure they understand exactly what happened there and why when they are sworn in there on Masada and their motto is Masada must not fall again and that's the determination of the Jewish people to this day and do you know that scripture makes it quite clear and we'll see this when we get to the prophetic portions that if not Masada at least in an area nearby that is commonly referred to as geographical portion of Edom which is southern Transjordan now where the Jews are going to be trying to survive the last desperate element of them and they will be there and when the

[39:41] Messiah comes that's where he's coming to and it will be quite remarkable and it's this very same area so I want you to keep thinking in terms of the strategic nature of the Jewish people I just wish they had I just wish that they themselves had a better appreciation and understanding of it but so many of them would consider what I'm talking about now as just fantasy but there's nothing fantastic about it it's going to come to pass and scriptures are replete with it the revelation is as well and we'll see that when we get to it so this is just one more instance of the persecution of the Jew and we are now in our day and time seeing another outcropping of anti-Semitism I don't know if this is the one or if the one is coming 30 40 50 100 years from now but the way it is now it's got all the earmarks of it it could very well be we'll take a couple of minutes for

[40:48] Q&A if anybody's got something they want to share anyone questions okay well you've got me interested do you know what happened to the two women and five children no I do not know at least the book doesn't go into that but that would be fascinating and it would also be interesting as to why they weren't included in those who were killed and it could very well be just idle speculation my guess is these were just a couple of mothers that just wouldn't do it wanted no part of it you know they'd rather take their chances and stay alive but that's just a guess we don't know exactly what it was that happened to them but you can see the kind of determination you know man man by his nature is given a thing called volition and it is a will and that will wants to operate and function and move as a being unhindered and unobstructed with a certain amount of freedom and liberty and ability to make your own choices etc and that is ingrained and the point has been made that it isn't the constitution that gives us our rights and freedom it's

[42:13] God he gives us this thing called volition and it is the ability to make self determination you know and it is a priceless thing it has to do with the conscience and there are those who will not allow you the freedom of conscience and when you think of religions like modern day Islam that will not give people the freedom to make choices but coerces and forces and intimidates into a decision that's something that Christianity can never do and should never do we appeal to people to make a but we dare not coerce or threaten or intimidate people that takes away their freedom of conscience and that is a priceless thing God has given Joe throughout the Bible there is the theme there will always be a remnant a remnant so this kind of ties in with that the two women and the children always be a remnant of

[43:20] Jews God has always had a remnant whether Jews or whatever and the first remnant was just eight people Noah and his family that was the first remnant and you're right God has always worked with the minority remember Gideon Gideon's 300 that's just one more example anything else before we dismiss I'm sorry I didn't leave you more time but I wanted to give you that story of Masada and if you ever get an opportunity I would really recommend that this is a movie that the whole family would enjoy and as far as I'm able to tell it is very accurate historically and I'm pretty sure it was Peter O'Toole an English actor that played the role in it and it was just Masada that was the name of it I really recommend it you check it out you might find it in the library or wherever but it is very our father we are so grateful for what is available to us that we otherwise would not know and for historians and for those whom you've inspired to write the records that we so enjoy down through the years and we want to use this information not to satisfy our curiosity but to gain a deeper appreciation of how you have been faithful and maintained your covenant promises with your people how you have been with the

[45:04] Jew through thick and thin how the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable and how you will surely bring to pass all that you have promised and we are so grateful that we serve an utterly reliable dependable God such as yourself we look forward to the day when Israel is a people will have a profound and new appreciation of your great faithfulness to them thank you so much for all that we enjoy in and through our Lord Jesus Christ dismiss us now we pray in his name amen