God’s First-Born

God’s First-Born.

The Wandering Jew, a fable invented to characterize the Jewish condition from the time of the destruction of Jerusalem to the period of 1948, a name that has marked them for the rejection of their Savior, and for their 1900 years of wandering.

Jews have never lost their nationality, preserving the distinctive characteristics of their race in whatever country, situation, or occupation they found themselves to be in. They never lost their love for the homeland; the land promised to them by Jehovah was ancient Israel. For centuries all that remained of their homeland were a few lettered pages, fallen stones; desolate and sand covered cities, relics of the past, their greatness and former glories seemed to have been swallowed up in time.

The Jew has for thousands of years preserved their identity in the present through the events, and things of the past; remaining as a beacon standing upon an ancient rock. For thousands of years, the Jew has stood openly in full view for all to see, they forever standing in the very center of the world. Their belief in the one true God shines as a light, one that has uncovered every superstition, polytheism, and idolatry known to man. 

The great ancient Empires of the world, the Assyrians; the Babylonians; the Persians; the Romans; the Carthaginians; Egyptians; and Goth’s have each in turn played their part on the world’s stage, and as the drama ended, so also did these disappeared from the scene. Yet the Jew and her state remain!

The wondrous history of faith is found in the oracles given them bu God. Far away in the past we can recognize the father of nations; Abraham. But his is more the history of a family then that of a nation.

The chosen of God; a people once enslaved; put to the task of raising gigantic monuments to the Pharaoh’s, and their gods. This once mighty Egyptian people have been cast down by God, never to regain their former glory. Weary from hunger and thirst, from journey, from battles, from defeats, from victories, they moved forward guided by the hand of God until the land promised became their home. 

As they grew weary the people went from a theocracy to seeking after kings; kings likened to those found in the nations about them. The roll of Jewish kings betrays no honest investigation; for some were good, and some bad; of the two, the bad would be of the much larger book.

Each false step brought them a new disaster, as their kingdom was divided then made weak before their enemies. The house of God had been laid low. Of the great wonders of the ancient world, ancient Babylon, a place of unbounded magnificence; surrounded by the glories of art; calculated to impress all people with the power and riches of their conquests; that is except the Jews, for it had now become their prison.

The sacred treasures of the Temple, the holy vessels had been carried off. But the prophet of Hezekiah’s time, Isaiah spoke of a coming deliverer, this in the person of Cyrus. The last days of Babylon were numbered when king Belshazzer polluted God’s holy vessels; his fate sealed by the finger of God.

Theirs is a story of great victories and shame, of great light, covered with a blanket of darkness; Persia, and Greece, and the iron teeth of Rome. In Rome remains the triumphal arch, erected when the captive Jews were brought there by Titus; an arch on which is sculptured the Roman soldiers carry the golden candlesticks, table of shew-bread, and other vessels of the Tabernacle.

The Jews were the builders of the great Roman Coliseum, but soon were to be the first victims slain within there walls. Loathed by all nations, persecuted on groundless charges, victims of popular fury, as well as of legal injustice, hanged, burned, and tortured to death, — the history of the Jews is that of martyrdom, and their preservation is nothing short of God’s miraculous grace.  

The world owes much to the Jews, they were the librarians of its revelation; in their laws are written the outline of man’s moral obligation to God; in their poetry we find the highest excellence; and in their ethical aphorisms a body of the soundest practical wisdom. The birth of Jesus Christ, and the Christian faith have been founded, professed and propagated by the Jews, God’s first-born.

There are glories that yet lay before them; a history yet unfinished, a light shining into the future; and a special place awaits them in the arms of the Almighty. All history is connected to the Jew; a history recorded in a record of facts. They have used every dialect, have wandered on the banks of the Nile, by the waters of Babylon, the Jordan, the Tiber, the Thames, the Mississippi; they have mingled but never united with other nations; and their history can only be explained through the pages of the Bible.

Phil LaSpino  www.seekfirstwisdom.com