Those Who Have Taken Hold

The coming revival is not coming with great hoopla or show. In fact the move of God upon Planet Earth will be just as the Kingdom of God was predicted - "without observation, but within." Part of that move is the unity of the ONE NEW MAN. We are living in those times. Those who embrace this unity will be blessed. Those who do not because of unbelief will like the unbelieving part of Israel be cut off from God's move on Planet Earth in these momentous days.

By Chris McDonald

Ephes. 2:13-18

But now in Christ Jesus the blood of Christ makes you who sometimes were far off nigh. [14] For he is our peace, who hath made the two one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; [15] Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: [17] And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh.  For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.   

            It was the summer of 1999. Lisa and I had not been married more than 6 months when we rented the movie “Schindler’s List” for the very first time. The movie, which won an Academy Award in 1993 for best picture, told the story of a man named Oskar Schindler, who hid more than 10,000 Jewish people from the Nazi war machine in Europe close to the end of World War II. Those Schindler helped were saved from what we know today in history books as the Holocaust, which saw nearly 6 million Jewish people die under scourge of Nazi debauchery and depravity. Genocide was not strange to the 20^th century, but genocide against a specific race of people was – at least until 1938 and the rise of Adolph Hitler.

            Before I watched this movie that summer, I was like most Christians today. I knew very little about Israel, the Jewish people themselves and the roots of my faith. I had heard about the Holocaust enough to know several million Jewish people died, and thought it aghast how such an act of barbarism could occur without much resistance from the civilized world at that time. That was about as far as my understanding of Judaism and the Jewish race went other than knowing of course my Saviour – Jesus – as we Gentiles refer to Him – was Jewish too.

            Upon watching the movie, I, along with my wife Lisa, wept many tears throughout the movie seeing the riveting story of Nazi brutality being portrayed in uncompromising terms against the Jewish race in the film by Steven Spielberg. In the middle of this story stood an interesting figure – Oskar Schindler – who by the movie’s account, was not even a godly man – but instead a Nazi Party member in good standing, a drunk, gambler, womanizer, slum lord and a marketer of cheap and even slave labor. But something rose up in this man’s heart to cause him to risk his entire life to save 10,000 Jewish people from certain destruction by a “list” of many he would take back to his native Czechoslovakia and hide from the Germans through bribes, deceit and outright purchase.

            As I watched this movie my heart broke. The story of Schindler sort off faded into the background of a bigger question going on in my mind. How could this horrible deed of history been done to God’s chosen people? How could man be so inhumane to his fellow man regardless of race or creed? War in itself is brutal and horrific – but the despicable systematic killing of Jewish people was entirely different. The German political machinery’s acts of murder, systematic executions, and the gassing of millions to death in torture camps turned me numb on the inside. I had never paused in all my life to embrace the scope and depths of what happened nearly 60 years ago now in history.

            That same night I found it hard to sleep – tossing and turning, lying on my back, staring at the dark bedroom ceiling; reeling from the images I had just seen. To be fair, the Hollywood version of the Holocaust probably dressed the entire ordeal up a great deal. I’m sure that had I witnessed the events first hand the pain and sorrow would have been even more riveting.

As I lay there, tears began to flow from my eyes as I began to literally feel the pathos I believe that heaven has for the Jewish people. It was a feeling unlike anything I had ever felt for a particular group of peoples my entire life. As the night progressed the tears began to come more rapidly and with greater intensity. By 4:00 AM I was crying so hard I realized that I had fallen off the side and was lying prostrate in the floor beside my bed. My wife awoke hearing what she described as some of the most gut-wrenching cries she had ever heard in her life. She asked me what was wrong but I was unable to speak because of the tears and anguish the Holy Spirit was crying through me. I told her I didn’t know but I had felt the most horrible sorrow for the Jewish people I’ve ever had. As I began to intercede for the Jewish people there on the floor of my bedroom at 4 AM, the Spirit of God took over the praying and my praying ceased being English – but in other tongues as the Spirit of God gave the utterances and increased the groanings and moanings as Paul said “that cannot be uttered.”

            I remember with each passing minute, a deeper love and intercessory burden for the Jewish people began to erupt in my heart. I didn’t understand what was happening to be frank. I mean, my goodness, it was just a movie, a secular movie at that about a historical event. Why would the Lord use such to do this type of work inside me in the middle of the night??

            The uncontrollable crying and moaning went on the rest of the night. I never did get back off the floor into the bed until the next morning when Lisa and the girls left for work and school.  Thank God I didn’t have to work the next day! As I lay there the next morning the tears started again. I could not stop crying. I got up, went into the bathroom to shave, and tears burst out my eyes again. I cried so hard that I had to sit down on the toilet seat to keep from falling to the floor again. After a short respite, I got dressed, sat down at the computer with this burden all of a sudden to find out everything I could about the Holocaust and get to the bottom of what happened to them for my own peace of mind and resolve. I was not just on a pursuit for knowledge in my quest; I wanted the Lord to speak to me through all that I would learn in the coming weeks, months and now years. I knew the last 24 hours was not just a case of me having too many onions for dinner. This was a supernatural and prophetic event in my life that has changed our home to this day.

            As I sat down at the computer about 11 that next morning I went to type in “Holocaust,” in a search engine and it started again. I burst into tears uncontrollably without stopping for yet another hour or two perhaps. I do remember that morning falling on the floor beside my computer with my face flat down on the kitchen floor crying out to God for mercy and protection for the Jewish people. I remember feeling again what I can only describe as the sorrow of Jesus for His precious ones. It’s a blessing to receive this but without a doubt not a feeling I’d wish on anyone. I think I understood that morning if maybe just for a moment in my dull, spiritually dead sense as a mortal, the pathos our Messiah had for us on the cross as He hung there dying between heaven and earth as our Heavenly Aaron "between the living and the dead." I believe for just a second this crying was in a way giving me insight to the heart of Jesus that day He looked over Jerusalem and wept declaring her end because of her refusal to accept HIM and His prophets.

I could not go more than 10-15 minutes at a time during the remainder of the day without crying, weeping, mourning, interceding, and at times just falling prostrate on the floor wherever I was at. We went out to dinner that night and while I was eating I had to get up and leave the table in the restaurant and went inside the men’s room to find a place to weep.  I may never know this on this side of eternity, but I do not doubt that the Lord may have literally caused my heart to feel the pain of every Jewish hurting individual torn apart by the death and destruction of 1939-1945. I know its not anything I had ever felt up until that time.

            This went on for about three days before letting up. There would be similar episodes over the next two weeks but not as intense as the first 3 days. With each article I read, each story I was told, each image I saw, my heart broke even more. At the end of this 2-week period, my tears then turned into something else. The more I studied the Holocaust a clarion question kept coming up before my face and into my heart. Where was the Christian church during this time in Germany? What were WE as New Covenant, Jesus-loving believers, doing then to help the Jewish people escape this horrendous time in their history and alleviate their sufferings? What was our country doing during this time (as well as all the other nations of the world) to stop this damnable act of genocide and violence against God’s chosen race???

            And with the blatant lack of answers to those questions, my sorrow turned to righteous anger. It became clearly evident from this study that the church had for the most part stood silent (with the exception of a few voices such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Corrie Ten Boom, who were persecuted and even killed for their protection of the Jewish race) as Germany hunted down every single Jewish person in Europe that they could find. In some cases, certain churches (of ALL denominations –none were exempt) actually gave up their Jewish members to the Nazis in FEAR of what would happen to them if they didn’t. (COWARDS) I read of one Assembly of God church in Poland in particular which when pressed by the Nazis there to tell where Jewish believers in their congregation were hiding actually took the Nazis to the residents of these Jewish faithful themselves. Others allowed the Nazis to hide out in the churches awaiting those who attended to enter the building only to see them escorted away – TO THE GAS CHAMBERS or WORSE.

            Hitler wrote in his memoirs toward the end of his life that his inspiration for doing what he did actually came from some of the writings of someone many in the church hold in high esteem - Martin Luther, the Reformer.  WE DON’T! Mr. Luther, who I do respect for his stand against the Catholic Church, was very Anti-Semitic and his venom and poisonous bitterness against the Jewish people fueled the fires across Europe of Jew hatred that ultimately led to this vile act of Satan through the Germans. That was done to his eternal shame and I believe overshadowed any good he could have ever done in relation to his fight against Rome.

            Remember this one fact friend. It’s not what the history books on Earth write about you and me that count. It’s what HEAVEN writes in ITS “ETERNAL” books that count. Earthly men and historians may judge us as “heroes of the faith,” and call us “fathers,” but if we have not been faithful to the KING OF GLORY, the LION OF JUDAH, the Messiah of Israel – and walked in HIS LOVE and compassion for others -  then our place in heaven will not be one of exaltation, but of rebuke and eternal contempt. Earthly titles don’t mean a thing when it comes to our union with Christ.

            The church has blood on its hand neighbor, which we will deal with more a bit in this study as we did in the first One New Man study.  Many of our so-called church fathers hated the Jews so badly that I really don’t see how they could profess to be saved. I know that’s blunt but you can’t have your faith in a JEWISH Messiah and hate HIS PEOPLE! That’s delusion!

It’s not just the church that stands accountable for the Holocaust though. America has blood on its hand as well. MORE could have been done to stop what happened in 1939-1945 by the Roosevelt White House. American warplanes bombed German cities left and right throughout the war, including many military targets in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Austria and Yugoslavia, where most of the genocide took place. Many of these targets were MINUTES, not hours, away from the same concentration camps housing the gas chambers that killed millions.

NOT ONE SINGLE GERMAN CONCENTRATION CAMP WAS EVER BOMBED or ONE SINGLE RAILROAD LINE connecting those camps was bombed either. You do the math and figure that one out yourself. It’s not hard to see that is we as a nation would have really WANTED to do something to stop this madness of systematic murder of Jewish people – WE COULD HAVE!

 The Roosevelt White House was very Anti-Semitic and while it would have never been voiced publicly, American politicians at the time, including the President and first lady, did many things to ignore the plight of European Jewry in the most needful time in their history other than their coming need in the Great Tribulation. No, not every single Jewish person could have been saved from what happened, but instead of millions dying, we could have possibly only been talking hundreds or thousands dying. Yes, that still would have been horrible in itself, but for those whose lives we would have saved, it would have meant everything to them and the generations of descendants who followed. You must realize that it was not just 6 million people Hitler killed and America let die, we let the LINEAGES of those 6 million people die too. In other words, the grandsons, the great-grandsons, the great-great-grandsons, etc., etc., that would have come from the living never came. How many scientists, leaders, PREACHERS, TEACHERS, PROPHETS, died in those lineages? Let that sink in.

            In the end I was more than numb from all the accounts I had read of America’s deafening silence and betrayal of European Jewry. I was hurt and very angry at our country as well as the rest of the world until I had to ask myself a powerful question that I think we all must ask ourselves today. Would I have stood with the Jewish people then? Will I stand with them in the future when this same scenario will more than likely be repeated by the Antichrist? Will America stand with Israel or will we betray her on the tables of Arab oil?

During World War II, America's answer was NO. It actually took a national outcry; protest and march on New York City, from the World Congress of Jewish People to even get Roosevelt to admit the killing was going on in the first place. Prior to the war the St. Louis, a ship carrying 930 Jewish passengers came to the U.S. seeking safe shelter from the rise of the Nazi war machine that was gaining more and more steam in Europe. It left Germany with no real destination in mind but hopes that above all other nations – the United States would be more than willing to take them because of our knowledge of Hitler’s undaunted hatred of Jews and his threats to murder them all if given the chance.

 Instead of the United States taking the passengers, we sent word to the captain of the ship we did not want them and diverted the ship to Havana, Cuba where it sat in port for 3 days almost begging the western world to open a port to save 930 Jewish people – precious people in the sight of God – SOULS – HUMAN BEINGS – LIFE – God’s chosen race.

            Only one nation – the Dominican Republic – offered any assistance but its offer was nothing more than pure blackmail. The Dominican Republic notified the captain of the St. Louis that each person leaving the ship and staying there would be required to pay the Dominican government a sum of money in today’s economy that would total about $100,000 a piece. That was insanity and rejected by all.

As the days went by, Cuba’s patience ran out and because of increasing international pressure to distant itself from the Jewish “situation,” as some politicians put it then, the ship was ordered to leave the port once and for all. The ship was faced with one or two choices – beg America one more time for safe harbor or return to Europe and more than likely see 930 people perish under Hitler.

One last frantic wire and telephone call went to Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt from the ship’s captain as he left Havana’s port. Neither the wire communiqué nor the phone calls were returned. There is one report that Eleanor Roosevelt actually saw the wire come in across the telegraph and stared at it before tearing it off the machine and throwing it in the thrash.

The St. Louis was actually met by the United States Coast Guard off the coast of North Carolina and warned that if it dared venture into U.S. Coastal territorial boundaries it would be shot out of the water.

            Of the 930 who were on that ship, less than 100 survived. Most perished in Hitler’s scourge of Europe. To many historians the St. Louis represented Hitler’s test of the Western civilized world in relation to the Jewish race. When he saw that the world was not willing to stand with 930 Jewish people on a boat, he realized he could do anything he wanted to do them and very few would stand up against him. The brutal, hard honest and sad truth is that he was right – no one did  - including the majority of Christendom of that day.

            This is the backdrop of what has led us to write One New Man 2. This story has a significant other half to it in relation to my brother Todd, who lived in Dayton, Ohio at the time as he served in the United States Air Force. During this period of personal intercession and deep weeping for the Jewish people, I told precious few people what was going on. I shared it once with our Wednesday night prophecy class that summer but that was it when it came to church folks. Of course my wife knew too but that was about it. In September 1999 I took a trip to Ohio to visit my brother for the first time since this all started earlier that summer.

We met at our favorite Waffle House we always hung out at when I lived with him there the previous year for a few months. I don’t know if that Waffle House has angels running it, but I know this – it has to be the most anointed Waffle House in America because of the nights Todd and I sat up there at 1 or 2 in the morning sometimes talking about the Lord, weeping, praying, and just praising God! I had not told Todd about my summer experience so I was anxious to share it with him to see what the Lord may say to me through him.

            As I told him the story I just related in this lesson/journal he sat there stunned and staring into space. He started shaking his head, and tears welled up in his eyes. I remember him leaning back in his booth and looking at me not knowing quite what to say. As he gained his composure, he said “Brother, you won’t believe this but about the same time this summer all of that was going on with you, I was experiencing the same exact thing!” He related how the Lord had birthed a supernatural love for the Jewish people through a series of weeks of weeping, travail, intercession and mourning – exactly like He had done in my own life that same summer and during almost the exact same time with the exception of a few days.

            We both sit there weeping as much as we could in a Waffle House, praising God for what He had done in both our lives. It was at that moment that Todd handed me a tape from a mutual friend from the Smithton Revival in Smithton, MO. A man by the name of Sid Roth was teaching on the “ONE NEW MAN” in Messiah. In this teaching Sid laid out a foundation for Christians to come back home to the roots of their faith, which were grounded in Judaism. (Before you zealots out there throw stones and scream “law, law,” let me remind you that while the Law will not save us – it is holy, JUST and the schoolmaster that leads us to Christ. Without the Law declaring our guilt, we would never have seen the need for our Messiah-Redeemer.)

            Sid’s teaching was something I had never heard before but in my spirit I knew this was not a “new” thing but something hidden to many because of our blindness and selfishness in the modern church. This teaching was the missing link between this aching passion and new burden I had received from the Lord four months prior. A new calling was on the horizon yet having nothing to grab hold to, the Lord sent me the anchor – the teaching of the ONE NEW MAN. My tears in the summer of 1999 were for more than just deep remorse and sorrow for the hurts of millions of Jewish people in the past, they were a prelude to a birthing of a bridge and bond between ME – a Gentile believer – and the Jewish people the Lord would commission us to now reach out to in ministry, love and support in an unprecedented way ever. As Gentiles and Jews, we are ONE NEW MAN IN MESSIAH.

Reconciliation, Not Separation

When it comes to the relationship of Jew and Gentile, the major thrust of all traditional church theology both past and present has mainly pointed to  separation between the Jewish and Non-Jewish part of the church. (It is also the thrust of all traditional rabbinic theology). God's major thrust, on the other hand, is and always will be, reconciliation - to take two and form them both into one new creation.

Eph. 2:13-16 - But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. [14] For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; [15] Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; [16] And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby:

As in the marriage of a man and a woman, so is the biblical joining of Jew and Gentile, God's purpose is neither the overthrow, nor the obliteration of the one or the other (male or female, Jew or Gentile), but rather mutual strengthening, service, and fruitfulness in the union of both into ONE.

Eph. 5:22-25  - Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. [23] For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the savior of the body. [24] Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. [25] Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;

Theology that sets "the Church in opposition to the "Jews" is "Anti-Judaic" theology and is deluded and demonic without a doubt. Much of the anti-Semitic passions of the early church fathers have been passed on from generation to generation.  Our eyes must be opened, especially in these last days prior to the coming of the Lord, to the need for true unity in the Body. This unity is not between denominations - it's between the Jewish and non-Jewish parts of the church.  Furthermore, true Biblical unity does not destroy either’s heritage or identity, yet as the husband and wife enhances each other – so will the union of the Jew and Gentile enhance the other. The reason this union will enhance more than divide is that the head of this movement is a PERSON. The One New Man is not a movement – it's the BODY OF YESHUAH MESSIAH.

Our Messiah is Jewish, yet through His death, we Gentiles are grafted into a Jewish covenant and Messiah's olive tree. Sadly, there has been a wall of separation that has been built between the two groups. Our goal and prayer for our ministry and these journals we write is to be a bridge builder and a voice. We seek to encourage the Body of Christ to tear down that wall of separation, for in tearing down the wall, we open the gates wide open to see the glory of the Lord upon His church in these final days prior to judgment and final harvest.

To Those Who Have Taken Hold

            There is a move of God taking place all over Planet Earth. Revival is breaking out in the hearts of millions of people. This revival is not taking the form of past revivals because it is more inward instead of outward. The Kingdom of God is truly coming NOT with observation, but within the hearts of those open to God's revelation of Yeshua HaMashiach. (Luke 17:17)

Many believers have been introduced to the “Jewish roots” of their faith in Yeshua. In this, their understanding of His worlds and life will be forever changed, as ours was in 1999. Many, like we, have been encouraged to learn and study as much as they can about their family heritage. Sadly,  some well-meaning, but ignorant and insolent people will meet this zeal by some with theologies intended to discourage from the burning desire of our hearts. We cannot allow the enemy to win in that arena!

            I can tell you this one thing. After the events of 1999 I began a quest that has not stopped even today. I want to know all I can about my heritage as a believer in Yeshua. The Lord has birthed in our home a deep-rooted passion for Israel, the Jewish people, Jerusalem, and anything related to the land where God calls “HIS OWN.” I am a very staunch supporter of those who stand in opposition to any idea of a Palestinian state. The Palestinian state proposed by the U.S.A. is without a doubt the most hypocritical indictment against this nation since the Holocaust itself. We have just spent millions of dollars; let me change that, billions of dollars, dismantling a terrorist state in Iraq. If we continue down this path of pushing for the establishment of a “Palestinian,” state, we will be basically be exchanging one terrorist region for another. Only this time, the threat to Israel will not be 3 countries over as Iraq was – it will be next door. We must pray against these measures coming to be.

My recent journey also has caused me to dig deep into the Old Covenant for truth from which I have not even scratched the surface. I've never been more in awe at God's matchless plan for man that was hidden in the sacrifices, the covenants, the dispensations of the Old Testament. The pursuit is still on and growing each day in its intensity to find our heritage in Messiah.

 In 2002 Lisa and I left a Pentecostal church we were attending to join a Messianic synagogue in Knoxville. Yes, it has been different and there are many aspects of worship there that we as Gentile believers do not fully understand. But we have felt for 18 months now that we are where we need to be. We have a sense that we are part of our REAL family in Messiah. Many of the Jewish people who attend have embraced us as we have embraced them.

The union has been one of joy, growth, excitement, and peace. We have learned a great deal to the point that things which were Greek and foreign to us 18 months ago are now becoming part of our daily lives – and in reality – were part of the lives of Yeshua and the early church. This has not been a quest so we can make ourselves Jewish. That  is an extreme some take that is not scriptural either. We are Gentiles and not called to be Jews. By the same token, the Jewish people who believe in Yeshua are not called to denounce their heritage and become Gentiles, as many in the church would have them do. It does not cost you Jewish person who may be reading this, your Jewishness to believe in Yeshua! HE IS OF YOUR LINEAGE!

            We are not identifying ourselves with a movement –but with a PERSON. Yeshua was JEWISH! One of our foremost desires, as it is with so many others awakening to these realities, is to be fully accepted as equals, in every sense of the word, with our brothers and sisters from the remnant of Israel. It is our desire to see all believers come to understand and realize the important relationships they truly have with the God of ISRAEL and His New Covenant. This covenant began with the TORAH and today finds it meaning in the realities of Messiah to which the Torah pointed.

          If you are born again then neighbor you are part of this ONE NEW MAN we speak of today. To state it further, anyone who is born into the Kingdom of God is born again as a new creation, a fellow citizen and fellow heir of the COMMONWEALTH OF ISRAEL. Therefore, we are full partakers of the covenants between God and Israel. That is what our message is today for "those who have taken hold." Some of you reading this feel the tug in your heart right now and know what we are saying is truth. You're soon to embark upon the same pursuit because you are seeking more of God. He's about to give you something to hold on to that will stand the test of all doctrinal scrutiny and study.

            Many want to embrace the covenant without embracing the commonwealth of Israel. To be frank, for us to embrace the covenants of Israel, we must embrace Israel itself. We cannot sit behind our pulpits and preach a doctrine of replacement theology, then boast we are the children of Abraham and entitled to Abraham's blessings of prosperity (as many in the Word of Faith movement do). That don’t work friend. To receive the blessings as “children” of Abraham, we need to LOVE the children of Abraham – the Jewish race.
 

            Our journey and quest have not been without peril and disappointment. We have come against some religious devils, unfortunately some carrying Bibles and holding leadership titles in churches. I ministered on the one new man message in a rather large Pentecostal church down south a year or so ago and would have had better success probably preaching to mules at midnight. At least the mules wouldn’t have acted like they were offended as these so-called spirit filled people did.

            Neighbor, this message is not a “NEW” message. It’s not a new FAD or something that just fell out of heaven for a select few to receive. No, it is a deep-rooted spiritual renewal among thousands of people who are waking up to the fact the missing link in their Christian experience is not "another experience," but returning to the roots of their faith.

            These who are taking hold are people who may speak in tongues, go to church, walk in the gifts of the Spirit, know the Lord intimately, and even have ministry calls. Despite these things something is missing and we may not understand why. When we start seeking God's blessing on this, then tremendous revelation and blessings will come from the Lord. Since 1999, and our subsequent joining of Shomair Yisrael Messianic Congregation in 2002, I feel like I have met another side of my "family" I have never known and you know what – they are neat people! They love Yeshua. They are educated, sharp, theologically sound, Yeshua worshipping lovers of God. Most are hurting and crying though for the Gentile world to embrace them as part of “the church,” without putting demands on them to renounce who they are as Jewish people in Messiah's vine. The Jewish part of the church (as well as non-believing Jewish people too) need as much love and compassion as we can muster and NO AMOUNT OF LOVE WE SHOW THEM WILL BE TOO MUCH.

For the non-believing Jewish people out there, we as Gentiles must show them that our Messiah is worth having. The reason we as Gentiles were grafted into the Olive tree of Messiah to begin with was to “provoke” the Jewish people lost in unbelief to jealousy. The way many act today in the Body of Christ today only provokes a deep rooted VOMIT from those who don't know Messiah. We talk a big talk but the substance of our walk with Christ is invisible because of a majority's superficiality and fake piety. The world sees through our act.

 I remember one night on a well-known nationally syndicated news-talk show a Jewish rabbi was debating with a dean of a Southern Baptist theological seminary over who Jesus was. The rabbi let the Southern Baptist dean get all his rhetoric out of how the Baptists were doing their “job” in witnessing to Jews. The rabbi sit there quietly and listened as the Southern Baptist dean made the issue of witnessing a huge “brownie” point for the Southern Baptist Convention instead of speaking to issues that sit deeply rooted in the hearts of all Jews. The rabbi said what millions would say to us today, “When we rang the phone during the Holocaust for your help, no one answered. Now you tell us you want us to believe in someone whom you say is our answer. We needed you then, you weren’t there then and we don’t need your help now.”

            That will not excuse this rabbi from eternity if he never receives Christ but it speaks to the great mountain we have to climb as non-Jewish believers to reach those in the Jewish community with the message of Yeshua’s love. Whether the Jewish people believe in Yeshua or not, they are still God’s chosen. Don’t misunderstand that statement. That does not mean every single Jewish person is saved just because they are Jewish. What it DOES mean is that the Jewish race has become a plumb line I believe in the last days for the modern church. We will seek to heal this rift between the Gentile and the Jew and see true revival or we will continue to conduct our weekly Sunday services without a thought to the other side of the Body and miss out on one of God’s most powerful blessings for us if we believe.

            A local pastor in Knoxville told our Messianic leader recently that he did not understand why ANYONE other than a Jewish person would want to attend where we go on Saturday (Shabbat). That statement highlights and underscores the ignorance and unbelief of the Gentile part of the church. We DON’T understand because we are blinded to the higher purposes of God in the earth today. All we see is whether people are Pentecostal or Baptist. If they don’t belong to one of those two groups (throw the Catholics in there too I guess) then we don’t think they belong to “the church.” Neighbor, when Jesus prayed and asked the Father to make us ONE in HIM, there were no such things as denominations then. He was praying for the union of the Jewish and non-Jewish part of the church. He was praying for the Jews and Gentiles.

            So as you come along on this journey with us some of the material in this study course may and probably will sound redundant from One New Man Part One. That’s ok. It won’t hurt to hear the message again. But we pray this second course will enhance the first course and in some ways charter new territory. One New Man 3 is already on the burner for the future. This is such a deep subject we may never be able to deal with it all in study lessons. That’s how great the depths of our salvation is. We need to rejoice today in that salvation because Salvation is of the Jews and if we are believers in Yeshua, we are part of that plan today. Be blessed.

Editor's note: The one new man is not a doctrine that teaches two different ways of salvation -one for the Jews, one for the Gentiles. We must ALL come the same way - through the blood of Jesus Christ and faith in Christ Crucified. There is not other name whereby men, be them Jew OR Gentile, must be saved. The one new man is CHRIST to whom both Jew and Gentile find reconciliation and unity through His blood. This message is ultimately a message of prayer and intercession and to increase awareness of the New Covenant Church of Israel's role in Bible Prophecy and how our the roots of our Christian faith have ties to Judaism in the sense that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Judah's father, where we get the term 'Jew') were the foundation of the Jewish nation. The tenets of the Law of Moses were to point us to CHRIST, the one to whom ALL prophecy and Law fulfills.  Christ came to give us a better covenant than Judaism! HE IS THE COVENANT! Our faith must be in HIM!