THE BOOK
BATTLEGROUND “JERUSALEM”
JUDAISM:
We cannot leave out the Jewish people in this crucial debate, for of all races, through their line of prophets they were the first to divine the reality of a One invisible God. So; from the Website: ‘Jews for Judaism’, let’s find out what one group of the “Chosen” have to say about the Coming of their Messiah. [Note the spelling, or lack of, in the name: G-d. The reason or reasoning completely eludes me.]
Messiah: The Criteria
‘The Jewish tradition understands “The Messiah” to be a human being – without any overtone of deity or divinity – who will bring about certain changes in the world and fulfil certain criteria before he can be acknowledged as “The Messiah”.’
1) First of all, he must be Jewish --- (Deut. 17:15)
2) He must be a member of the tribe of Judah -– (Genesis 49:10)
3) He must be a direct male descendant of King David and King Solomon
–- (2 Samuel 7:12-13)
4) He must gather the Jewish people from exile and return them to Israel
--- (Isaiah 11:12)
5) He must rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem -– (Ezekiel 37:26-27)
6) He will rule at a time of world-wide peace –- (Micah 4:3)
7) He will rule at a time when the Jewish people will observe G-d’s
commandments -– (Ezekiel 37:24)
8) He will rule at a time when all people will come to acknowledge and
serve one G-d -– (Isaiah 66:23)
9) All of these criteria are best stated in the book of Ezekiel Chapter 37
verses 24-28:
10) If an individual fails to fulfil even one of these conditions, then he
cannot be “The Messiah.” A careful analysis of these criteria shows us
that to date, no one has fulfilled every condition. Certainly NOT Jesus.’
There you have it; the Jewish take on the conditions their Messiah must fulfil --- for them. Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of that “Jewish list of requirements” is the most unfortunate fact for Judaism that not one of those criteria was actually fulfilled at His Coming.
Why? Simple: The Promised Messiah, The Spirit of Truth, was/is not subject to any interpretation of the Torah or any other earthly book. To believe that One from The Very Source of All Life must somehow be subject to conditions imposed by a people who “did not believe” when a Redeemer from that Very Same Source came among them according to their own prophecies, and, at His trial, the key point was conveniently forgotten: “He shall be born in Bethlehem”; not the Nazarene. To this day, there has not ever been one public Jewish acknowledgement of that monumental error.
No: it is too late now for most in the Jewish race, for virtually all chances of redemption since that fateful day; they turned aside. There may, however, still be one –- but only one -– chance still left, but again just for a few. For on the basis of the list of conditions Jewish “scholars” impose upon HIM, the ‘Chosen’ race will be left bereft through again being “stiff-necked”. Their non-recognition and/or denial of the fulfilment of perhaps the greatest and most crucial Event for humankind, signalled through powerful and succinct prophecy, has already resulted in great Jewish suffering in the 20th century.
However, the key to recognition is not in your revered Torah or Talmud, but in the Bible. Thus, was it so!
From, respectively: (1 Thessalonians 5:1) and (2 Peter 3:10. Fenton Both).
“But about the times and seasons, brethren, there is no need for writing to you: for yourselves know well enough that the day of the Lord comes like a thief at night.“
“But the day of the Lord will approach like a thief, when the skies will pass away with a crash and their constituents will be dissolved by heat: while the earth and what is upon it will be reorganized. All having to be thus dissolved, what ought you to be like in regard to pure conduct and piety, expecting and hastening on the appearance of the Day of God! --- during which the burning skies will be dissolved and their constituents melted by heat; yet according to His promise, we look for new skies and a new earth, in which righteousness will dwell .”
The religious/political history of Jerusalem has, literally, been “done to death”. Countless millions of words in massive tomes stack the shelves of academic and religious institutions all over the globe and scholars spend years poring over ancient and dusty, much-valued manuscripts. As if somewhere in there --- as in the days of Solomon --- is the magic key that will bring Jerusalem to its former position of ‘glory’. Unfortunately for that popular hope in global Christendom and Jewry; in the modern idiom: “It’s too late. It’s all over.” There are no magic formulae in those revered documents. In fact, we will be more succinct and state only what really matters now – today! From Proverbs: 29:18,
“Without Revelation a Nation fades. But it prospers by knowing the Law.”
The critical Revelation today and the one of greatest value is the true identity of the Spirit of Truth; and the only Law now worth knowing are The Divine Laws of Creation; from His All-Truth.
The history of the Jews is quite clear; always the “stiff-necked” people. When they obeyed the Law and direction of their prophets, they prospered. When they became “stiff-necked”, they suffered. So, a strange group who knew they were “Chosen”, knew they were meant to always obey their prophets, but who many times refused to, killed more than a few of them, and then “cried foul” when everything “turned to custard”. The end result: The destruction of the Temple, the sack and destruction of the city of Jerusalem by the great Roman General Titus, the loss of the Holy of Holies and the scattering of the whole race.
For those reasons, the notion that the re-emergence of the State of Israel automatically means a new spiritual golden age for Jews under the rule of their Messiah died its death a long time ago. Once more for the final record: It will not happen because they, especially, not only missed the moment of The Final Coming, but they, too; along with global Christianity and pretty much every other group of humans on the planet, did not want it: Non-recognition through wrong expectations.
In this case it is perhaps the best example, in the ‘collective’ sense, of the well-dressed cadaver, perfectly correct in its cultural/religious ‘garb’, but: “All dressed up with no place to go”.
Jerusalem now is nothing more than a battleground for three once prime religions that should have awakened to real Truth last century --- and believed. Jerusalem, an abandoned ‘shell’ where no Messiah will ever set foot! For the Jews, precisely because they refused to believe and accept; the stark End-time reality must follow a predictable path now. Most definitely once the real ‘Chosen Race’, but to refuse, from the Very God they profess to believe in, the gift of His Envoys each in their turn; how can any Jewish person really believe that they are somehow still “chosen”? It is Einstein’s definition of senility:
“To keep doing the same things and expect a different result.”