Messianic Perspectives

Dr. Gary Hedrick: Peter prophesied that in the last days, scoffers will say, "Where is the promise of Christ's coming?" Is this prophecy being fulfilled in our generation? We'll talk about it today, right here on Messianic Perspectives.

Liz Aiello: Shalom and welcome to Messianic Perspectives, a daily program where we look into the scriptures from a distinctive first-century Jewish point of view. I'm Liz Aiello.

Today we're talking about the promise of His coming with our Bible teacher, Dr. Gary Hedrick. I'll be back a little later with information about a special offer, so have your pencil and paper ready. Now, with today's study, here is Dr. Gary Hedrick.

Dr. Gary Hedrick: Thank you. It's good to have you with us today, listening friend, as we continue our series on the promise of His coming. We’ve been talking about the fact that prophecy is the main subject of the Bible. The Bible talks more about prophecy than it does about faith. The Bible talks more about prophecy than it does about the atonement. The Bible talks more about prophecy than it does about salvation.

In fact, you can't properly understand any of those subjects unless you first understand prophecy. Listen, the first promise in the Bible is a prophetic promise in Genesis 3:15. The last promise in the Old Testament is about Christ and His coming, Malachi 4. The first announcement given by the angel in the New Testament to Mary was that the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David, and He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there shall be no end. It's prophetic, Luke chapter 1 verses 32 and 33.

The last words of the Lord before the cross were, "I am coming again." After He left, the first words He sent back from heaven were, "I am coming again." And the last promise in the Bible is, "I am coming again," Revelation 22:20. What am I saying? I'm saying that if you don't understand prophecy, you won't understand the Bible. Because Jesus Christ promised to come again, the very same Jesus who was born in a stable, died on a cross, ascended into heaven, and is coming again someday. Every one of us will have to meet Him either in glory or in judgment. How about you? Are you ready to meet Him?

Now, on the last program, we were reading a passage in Acts chapter 1, and we didn't finish that passage, so I'd like to go back there if you don't mind. In Acts chapter 1, it says Jesus was with His disciples for forty days after the resurrection, teaching them many things about the kingdom of God, it says. And in verse 6, they asked Him if He was going to restore the kingdom to Israel at that time. "Wilt Thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?" And He said, "It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father hath put in His own authority."

The word that's translated "times" means the length or duration of something. Because really what His disciples were wanting to know was how long it would be before the Messianic Age would begin. He was telling them that it wasn't for them to know how long the interim period between His first and second comings would last. These things are in the Father's hands.

Then the Greek word that's translated "seasons" has the idea of specific events or epochs in God's prophetic plan. Even today, people get caught up in all sorts of speculation about when certain prophetic events are going to take place. They try to calculate the date of the rapture, for example. But Jesus said it's not for us to know specifically when the rapture will occur, or when the antichrist will be revealed, or when Christ will touch down on the Mount of Olives. The command is that we are to be ready at all times.

Then look at verse 8. It says, "But ye shall receive power after that the Holy Spirit is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." The energizing force for the spreading of the gospel is the power of the Holy Spirit. In the Greek, the Holy Spirit is Hagiu Pneumatos.

In the Hebrew, He's known as Ruach HaKodesh, the Holy Spirit. And Jesus says that His talmidim, His disciples, are to make other disciples. That's our job. And they were to start where they were in Yerushalayim. By the way, that's where we're all supposed to start, not Jerusalem, but we're supposed to start where we are. Then the next stage would be Yehuda or Judea, which was the countryside surrounding Jerusalem. The third stage would be Shamron or Samaria. That's where the Samaritans lived.

By the way, we receive a lot of questions from people who want to know what happened to the so-called ten lost tribes of the house of Israel or the northern kingdom. There are mythological stories that say the ten tribes fled northward after the Assyrian captivity and they were lost. Now some people say that the Anglo-Saxon nations of Europe and North America are descended from these ten lost tribes. But this is utterly ridiculous. For one thing, the ten tribes of the house of Israel were never lost. Even in New Testament times, some seven hundred years after the Assyrian captivity, there were still remnants of the ten tribes living in Palestine.

In Luke 2:36, we are told that Anna the prophetess was from the tribe of Asher. That was one of the ten northern tribes, and Anna wasn't lost. And do you know who the Samaritans were? When the Assyrians invaded Israel in the seventh century BC, they took thousands of Israelites away into captivity. But they also left thousands of Israelites behind to work the land.

So, to make sure the remaining Israelites wouldn't be able to reestablish the northern kingdom and rebuild Samaria, the Assyrians did something rather clever. They went out into the Arabian desert and recruited thousands of nomadic Arabs. These were wild people, and the Assyrians brought thousands of these Arabs into Palestine and gave them the land. Over the centuries, these Arabs intermarried with the Israelites who were left behind by the Assyrians, so their offspring were actually half-Israelite and half-Arab.

They became known as Samaritans because they lived in the region of Samaria where the northern kingdom was. The Samaritans were half-Jewish, and they practiced a form of Judaism. They believed in the Torah and in Moses as God's prophet. But the Jews looked down upon the Samaritans as half-breeds and refused to let the Samaritans even participate in the building of the second temple. So, the ancient Samaritans built their own temple on Mount Gerizim modeled after the temple of Solomon. It was beautiful, but it was destroyed in 128 BC. I wish we had time to go into it in more detail. The story of the Samaritans is very interesting. There are still small communities of Samaritans living in Israel today. They have survived for almost twenty-seven hundred years, and their own traditions say that they are descended from the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh.

But Jesus was always sympathetic with the plight of the Samaritans. He rebuked His Jewish brethren for their hostility toward the Samaritans. The woman at the well was surprised that this Jewish rabbi would speak with her so freely and openly. Jesus was Jewish, she was a Samaritan. And here in Acts chapter 1 verse 8, Jesus makes sure that His disciples understand that the gospel is for everyone, including the Samaritans. They were to start in Jerusalem, and then take the good news into Judea, Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

Verse 9, "And when He had spoken these things, while they beheld, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight." Verse 10, "And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel." Now watch this, verse 11, "Which also said, 'Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven.'" What did they say? They said Jesus would return in the same manner in which He left. That is literally, physically, and visibly.

What does that mean? It means Jesus Christ will return someday to intervene in the affairs of this world. The Old Testament prophets promised He would. Jesus Himself promised He would. And here, even the angels promised that He would return. The surest thing in all the world is the coming again of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is coming to put an end to the misery that sin has brought, to take His church unto Himself, and to set up upon this earth a government and a kingdom which shall bring peace, prosperity, and blessing to all the families of the earth.

The greatest event in the history of the world was the first coming of Jesus Christ. On that day in the fullness of time when God sent forth His Son to become a man, it marked the turning point of all history and the greatest revolution in religion and thought that the world has ever known. Surely that was a great event when God came down to dwell in the womb of a human mother and to be born as a little babe in a stable in Bethlehem. Listen to what John said about Jesus.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. Verse 14, "And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth."

You see, that's what the Jewish sages missed. They could never understand the truth that the Messianic promise was that God would take upon Himself the form of a man. But isn't it interesting that Eve looked down into the face of her first child and wondered if that child was the Lord? She said, "I have gotten a man, even the Lord." Well, she was wrong. Cain wasn't the Messiah. But some four thousand years later, in the fullness of time, the Messiah was born. Mark Lowry wrote a song called "Mary, Did You Know?"

It says, Mary, did you know that your baby boy would one day walk on water? Mary, did you know that your baby boy would save our sons and daughters? Did you know that your baby boy has come to make you new? This child that you delivered will soon deliver you. Mary, did you know that your baby boy would give sight to the blind man? Mary, did you know that your baby boy would calm a storm with His hand?

Did you know that your baby boy has walked where angels trod? And when you kiss your little baby, you’ve kissed the face of God. Well, we're out of time. We'll continue looking at the promise of His coming on the next program. Until then, this is Gary Hedrick saying God bless you. Take care. Bye-bye.

Liz Aiello: Thank you Gary, and thank you listening friend for tuning in today. If you liked what you heard today, you will be pleased to know we've taken all of the programs in this series and placed them on one convenient CD entitled The Promise of His Coming. And it's yours for a gift of just $6 or more to Messianic Perspectives. Just visit our secure online store at messianicspecialties.com to place your order.

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I'm Liz Aiello. Join us next time, won't you, as Dr. Gary Hedrick continues our series of studies on the promise of His coming, right here on Messianic Perspectives. Messianic Perspectives is sponsored by CJF Ministries of San Antonio, Texas, and is made possible on this station by the free-will contributions of our listeners in this area.