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Based on Ezek. 47:1-12
Orville Wright, co-inventor with his brother Wilbur of the first plane to really fly, was looking at the headlines of a newspaper with David Lefkowitz, a well-known Jewish preacher back in 1918. The headlines told of a terrible air battle between German and America aces. Orville said, "We thought that our invention of the heavier-than-air flying machine would advance the happiness of man, but it has been the swift messenger of death." After a long pause he went on-"I fear we gave this to mankind before we were ready to control its use for blessing rather than for a curse; our spiritual and religious development have lagged behind the fast pace of science." Lefkowitz said that Orville saw, "The sputtering of the candle of the Lord while the fierce bright light of science shown across the world."
This is one area where Jews and Christians clearly agree, and that is that our world has turned away from the spiritual, and it has turned toward the material. The Jews agree that the world is sick and that man's sin has polluted the stream of history, and that a return to God is the only cure. In a sermon on Ezek. 47:12 Lefkowitz said that many have prepared remedies for the world's sickness, but the only one that will work is the one Ezekiel writes about. Ezekiel is a prophet who speaks in pictures, and in this chapter he paints a picture of a river, which gives life, new strength and vitality. It is a river with the power of regeneration, and what is its secret? Verse 12 reveals the secret in the phrase, "Because the water flows from the sanctuary." Lefkowitz says, "In plain words, the prophet Ezekiel feels certain that the ills of society in his day or any other day can only be cured by spiritual means-out of the sanctuary."
The Jews recognize that modern man in his quest for power, wealth and conquest over the forces of nature has ended up spiritually empty. God's moral law in the universe condemns man to pay a heavy penalty for such folly. The Jews believed strongly in man's responsibility and in his ability to fulfill God's will if he chooses. Lefkowitz says of the world's judgments, "It is not honest thinking to regard these as visitations of God which we are powerless to prevent. They are clearly of our own making..." If men do not turn to the sanctuary and stand in the stream of the water flowing from God, Ezekiel says they will not become fresh and fertile soil, but will become salt. Israel's history reveals this over and over again. Man is responsible for the mess he is in. God has a cure, and the task of the Jew, as they see it, is to help the sick world see its need of God's cure. They feel they are the people that God is calling to minister to the needs of men, and the poetry they use could be used as a missionary call in a Christian church.
The voice of God is calling its summons onto men,
As once He called at Zion, so now He calls again.
Whom shall I send to succor my people and their need?
Whom shall I send to shatter the bonds of lust and greed?
We hear, O Lord, Thy summons and answer here are we,
Send us upon Thine errand, let us Thy servants be.
Take us and make us holy; teach us Thy will and way;
Speak, and behold, we answer, "Command and we obey."
This response to the call is the ideal. The real is far different, but Judaism has high goals. Abraham Caplan in his testimony called Beyond Humanism says, "The hope of Moses that every Jew become a prophet is essential to the viability of every religion. Jewish life today is in danger of being choked by professionalism. We cannot live indefinitely off our "heritage," no matter how skillfully the capital of the past is managed for us by others." It is clear that Jews feel the same need as Christians. They feel that God is the answer. They feel that they are His people to spread the news, but they feel they are failing because the majority are spectators. Their proclamation of principles and their problems are very similar to those of Christians. The great difference is on the person of Christ.
The value of reading Jewish sermons is that it makes you aware of the rich heritage we have received from them. It makes you realize that the Old Testament revelation is far more broad and inclusive than we may think. There is hardly a subject that a Christian can preach on from the New Testament that cannot be found in the Old Testament. The Jews can match Christians on almost anything you can imagine. The Lordship of Christ is that distinctive note of the church. It is no wonder the Gospel is made so simple.
All people need to do is to confess that Jesus is Lord, and believe in their hearts that God raised Him from the dead, and they will be saved. Many to whom the Gospel was spoken already knew more biblical theology than the average Christian of today. Many were priests and scribes who knew the Old Testament in depth. All the needed to do to complete their relationship to God was to acknowledge Jesus as Lord. For the Gentile without this heritage, coming to Christ was the beginning. But for a Jew it was the climax of his response to God. Studying Judaism makes you realize that Christ alone makes Christianity distinctive, and as soon as you omit Christ you become Jewish, for all biblical theology without Christ is from the Jews. This means we can learn much from the Jews about God's Word, but they can offer nothing that comes close to salvation and new life in Christ.
The Jews know the value of devotion and meditation. To be still and know that God is God, and to consider His wondrous works is vital to their faith. They live in the same world of tension as we do. Their teachers and preachers push them to take time to be holy, and to give God a part of their daily life. Their poets stress this as do ours. One wrote,
Once I met an angel by the way,
A brief hour he stayed and then did part;
And now his halo guilds my every hour,
His song sings always in my heart.
Listening to Lefkowitz comment on this would leave you unable to distinguish his Jewish perspective from a Christian perspective on the need and value of devotion. He wrote, "The angel of that hour might guild our everyday and his song sings always in our heart. It is a silent hour, like the hour of the turning tide. Have you stood on the shore of the sea and seen the waves with hoary manes ride in and break with terrific din? There comes a moment of silence when the self-same waves, drawn by the lunar pole 238,000 miles away, turn about and with the same crash of sound with which they came in now ride out again to sea. That moment of silence is the turning of the tide; so the silent hour in our day, the hour of retrospection, the hour of thinking it all out, is the true turning of our life's tide. In that hour we hear the voice of God, in a world that in Wordsworth phrase is 'Too much with us.'"
Jews believe in devotion, quiet time and a deep involvement with the Word of God. Let us not think that only Christians are Bible lovers. Do not think we speak only of the Old Testament either, for a good many Jews are likewise students of the New Testament. It is also a Jewish book, and part of the literature which they claim as their heritage and gift to the world. Their claims for the Bible are as strong as ours. In another sermon Lefkowitz says, "The writers of the Bible were realists. You will look in vain for a single area of life, which the Bible does not see clearly, and about which it does not speak candidly."
The Jews believed that idolatry is the great curse of man. It is the making of gods in their own image. The gods of money, success and power are the most popular. They see it just as the Christian does, and they see the answer as we do, but they do not possess the whole and adequate answer. Lefkowitz ends the sermon by saying, "The conception of the true God and understanding of His will must reach the hearts of men...before democracy and brotherhood and human decency and kindness can flower forth in fullest splendor upon the earth." When you come right down to it the Jews believe salvation is in knowing God, and their mission is to make the truth of God known. They are so close to Christians, for Jesus said in John 17:3, "And this is eternal life, that they know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent."
The only difference that really matters between Jews and Christians is Jesus Christ. This is a difference that makes all the difference in the world, however, for it is a matter of eternal life and death. The Christian does not disagree with the Jew. He says to them that you are right, but you must go one more step in receiving Jesus as the Son of God. Listen again to Lefkowitz exalt God as the answer to man's need for redemption: "First comes God. The world will not be redeemed by poor laws, not even by disarmament conferences. The accumulated wrongs of the ages will not be cleared out with electric fans. Not even with the fans of a hundred legislative enactments or relief agencies. None but God can redeem this world. God in the human heart, God softening the passions of men, transforming the stuff man is made of, rendering man as sensitive to the call of the spirit as an Aeolian harp is to the wayward breath of the wondering wind."
He is so close, and yet so far. You can see why our heritage is referred to as the Judao-Christian heritage. Jews and Christians are brothers in so many ways. It is our obligation to love them and seek to win them to be brothers in Christ also. We have received all that the Jews have and more, and it is our responsibility to encourage them to receive that more, which is Jesus Christ.
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