Obeying Our Parents
Obeying Our Parents
"Honour your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you." (Exodus 20.12)
"Children obey your parents in the Lord, for that is right. Honour your father and mother - which is the first commandment with a promise - that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth." (Ephesians 6.1-3)
"Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord." (Colossians 3.20)
There is abroad at this time, a fashionable epidemic of dismissive criticism of "over-the-hill" Christian leaders, by those who have newly gotten hold of the Church's reins! Sad...very sad! For too late will these "cognoscenti" recognise that the plain word of God is not to be lightly nor inconsequentially contradicted or voided. Too late will they wake up, upon finding themselves bereft of that which they were so eager to tear away from their elders.
But perhaps the greatest dishonouring of our spiritual fathers, is to simply ignore them; to consign their way-of-life and their doctrine (1 Timothy 4.16) to the scrap heap of history. This I believe to be especially true of much modern teaching concerning Israel and the Church.
It is imperative that we hear with freshly opened ears, the teaching of our Christian fathers, whose doctrine has not been pressed into the matrix of "pop" theology or contemporary history. After all, it is not the Bible teacher's role to sculpt the Scriptures to fit history, but rather to illuminate current events with the pure light of God's Word.
"My son, keep your father's commands...Bind them upon your heart forever...For these commands are a lamp, this teaching is a light." (Proverbs 6.20-24)
One such father is David Baron (1855-1926). He does not merely deserve to be heard; it is imperative that his teaching concering Israel and the Church, and the ultimate destiny of God's Jewish People, be heeded with the greatest urgency and gravity. Because, at crucial points, he begs to differ with those who today appear to hold a monopoly on this subject.
David Baron was a religious Jew, of Russian descent, who was raised in Poland. As a young man he emigrated to England, where (in spite of traditional antipathy towards Christianity) he read the New Testament and accepted Jesus of Nazareth as "Israel's Messiah and the world's Redeemer and Saviour". In the late 1800s (along with C.A. Schonberger)David Baron founded the "Hebrew Christian Testimony to Israel". They began this ministry in a rented room in London's East End and it grew to become "one of the best known and most respected Jewish missions in the world". Later in life, it was said of him that he "explained Christianity to Jews, and the Jews to Christianity". David Baron also knew Theodore Herzl (author of "The Jewish State") personally, attended early Zionist conferences, and was vitally interested in plans to establish a modern Jewish state.
During a visit to the United States (Northfield Congregational Church, Massachusetts) he delivered a paper (published in 1891) entitled, "The Jewish Problem". His core text was Jeremiah 30.1-17. Below, I "pick the eyes out" of this message, believing that the particular points I've chosen to emphasise are generally down-played, glossed-over or over-ruled today. But they are in fact crucially important and indispensable to any practical consideration of and creative involvement in the ultimate destiny of God's Old Covenant People.
1) David Baron begins his paper with a warning for the Church and the human race. He emphasises that the Apostle Paul (in Romans 9-11) was "most impressed with the importance of the Church having correct views on this subject (God's purposes in Israel); and feels he cannot leave them ignorant of this mystery, lest, through the erroneous notion that God hath cast away His People Israel which He fore knew, and that the special promises and privileges reserved to Israel nationally in the Word of God have been transferred to the Church, they should fall into the danger of self conceit.
"Apart from God's revelation, the Jew is an enigma, a problem beyond the vain attempts of man to solve; and attempts of the kind, if not based upon the Word of God, are futile and impious.
"The future of Israel is one of those subjects concerning which the great God has deigned to speak; and however difficult or improbable to man that future may appear, it behoves us to believe and receive, and not to speculate or rebel."
2) David Baron is also absolutely plain in his teaching concerning the utter sanctity and incorruptibility of the Gospel. Thus he anticipates and "puts to the sword" the modern phenomenon of those who propose some kind of "third covenant" or alternative way of salvation for Jews.
"I would have it most distinctly understood," he says, "that God's dealings with individual Jews and Gentiles are precisely one and the same. Without repentance, faith in Christ, and holiness of heart, no individual Jew or Gentile shall ever be saved.
"Like thousands more, the writer has in the infinite grace of God been brought out of the darkness of Rabbinical Judaism into the marvellous light and liberty of the glorious gospel of Christ."
3) While affirming the personal salvation of Jews, one-by-one, David Baron equally forcefully affirms the Biblical promises of "a restoration of the people of Israel to the land of their fathers", and their
subsequent "national conversion".
The restoration to The Land he observes in the Bible, is "a complete one".
"The number who will return," he says, "shall be 'a great company' (Jeremiah 31.8), so that even the whole of the promised land will not be large enough for them." (Isaiah 49.19-20, Zechariah 10.10)
And further, Israel's "complete" restoration to The Land, anticipates their "complete" restoration to God.
"Israel," according to David Baron, "nationally is then to enter into the blesssings of the New Covenant announced in this very prophecy (in Jeremiah 31.31-34 'They will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest'); which the election of individuals from all nations now enjoy, as it were, by anticipation. The same is clearly announced in Ezekiel."
"You will live in the land I gave your forefathers; you will be My people, and I will be your God...I will take the Israelites out of the nations where they have gone. I will gather them from all around and bring them back into their own land...They will be My people, and I will be their God. My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd." (Ezekiel 36.28 and 37.20-24)
4) It is concerning the circumstances of Israel's national conversion that David Baron and most (of the few) contemporary Christian teachers who are actually pro-Israel, part company.
Appealing to his core text (Jeremiah 30.1-17), David Baron raises the issue of the "time of Jacob's trouble".
"How awful that day will be! None will be like it. It will be a time of trouble for Jacob, but he will be saved out of it...They will serve the Lord their God and David their king, whom I will raise up form them." (vs 7-9)
" 'What! you say. Will not all the sufferings of Israel through all these centuries suffice? Is there a yet future baptism of fire, through which they must pass?' Yes, this is clear from this (Jeremiah's) prophecy, as well as many others."
"Son of man, the house of Israel has become dross to Me...Because you have all become dross, I will gather you into Jerusalem...So I will gather you in My anger and My wrath and put you inside the city and melt you." (Ezekiel 22.17-22)
According to David Baron, the terrible fiery furnace immediately succeeds the gathering into the midst of Jerusalem.
"In one sense, 'the time of Jacob's trouble' may be only a summing up, a culmination, of all (dispersions, massacres, spoliations and oppressions of the Jews) that has preceded.
"But it is clear that there is a time of fiery judgement awaiting Israel after the return to their land, which will immediately precede their national conversion and the revelation to them of the Messiah, whom, as a nation they have so long rejected.
(At this point, I solemnly urge readers to stop and draw breath...and ponder this. David Baron's eschatology is entirely based upon Scripture, and undisturbed by any consideration of or pressure from events that have overtaken God's Jewish People since the time his message was delivered.)
"What have we in the last chapters of Zechariah? Israel in their land; not necessarily the entire nation, but the bulk of it, evidently restored in a state of unbelief. Then comes this awful announcement, 'In the whole land,' declares the Lord, 'two-thirds will be struck down and perish; yet one-third will be left in it. This third I will bring into the fire; I will refine them like silver and test them like gold. They will call on My name and I will answer them; I will say, They are My people, and they will say, The Lord is our God. I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to fight against it; the city will be captured...Half the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be taken from the city. Then the Lord will go out and fight against those nations, as He fights in the day of battle. On that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem.' " (Zechariah 13.8-14.4)
"Suddenly," David Baron continues, "when the cloud will be thickest, and the anguish most acute; when even the small remnant that shall be left of Israel shall despair of hope, and Israel's enemies be most certain in their own minds of accomplishing their purpose of utterly exterminating that people whom they will think has been given over to them as prey...Then, with the speed of lightning, and attended by all His saints and hosts of angels, shall the same Jesus, who ascended bodily and visibly on a cloud from the Mount of Olivet, so and in like manner, be revealed again. But this time in a special and peculiar manner, as Israel's King and Deliverer.
"So will the Shepherd of Israel 'save' the remnant of His people from the hands and jaws of those who are stronger than they; and slay them who devoured, broke in pieces, and stamped with their feet, His chosen, with a fierceness exceeding even that of the bear and the lion."
5) And finally, David Baron, is unflinching in his expecation of a Kingdom of God on this earth, which is as far from being merely spiritual or some how or other expressed solely by the Church, as the east is from the west!
He draws attention to the angelic announcement of Luke 1.26-37, "He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever; His Kingdom will never end."
And he asks, "What throne is that (of His father David)?"
"Not the throne of Heaven, nor yet the throne of God's spiritual Kingdom; for neither of these was, or could have been, occupied by David, or could be inherited by Christ as 'Son of David'.
"The throne intended, then, must be the throne of the kingdom of Israel, and that it is so, the words of the angel testify.
"At His first coming, Israel, as a nation deliberately rejected Him! But the national verdict with regard to Jesus of Nazareth will be revoked; the great mistake of the Jewish people shall yet be acknowledged and repented of...They will recognise His claims, not only as...the one whose right it is to reign over them; but they will deliberately declare Him...their elected or exalted one."
"They will live in the land I gave to My servant Jacob, the land where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children's children will live there forever, and David My servant will be their prince ('nassi" - elected by the free will of the people!) forever. I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant...I will put My sanctuary among them forever.' (Ezekiel 37.24-28)
David Baron concludes his treatise with a statement which is more like a hymn of praise than an essay, "But as sure as there was a cross planted for (Christ) on that Golgotha, outside the walls of Jerusalem, so surely, if the word and oath of our God stands for anything, is there yet to be a glorious throne for our Redeemer and Master on Mount Zion.
"And however marvellous and improbable in our eyes, Israel shall yet 'serve Jehovah their God and David their King', and deliberately elect Him, whom during centuries of unbelief they have despised and rejected, as their...freely chosen ruler and prince."
