The question is always asked, “How can you be so sure that this Jesus is the Jewish Messiah?” Well, I’m so sure because I had an encounter with Him. Forty years ago he walked into my bedroom. So, I mean, no contest. But that doesn’t help you a whole lot. But after He came in to my bedroom, although I come from a good orthodox Jewish upbringing: I was Bar Mitzvah’d, I went to the synagogue. Although I knew the basic Bible stories, I really didn’t know the Tenakh, the Jewish scriptures. So I started reading for the first time. I started thinking for myself. And, I’ll tell you, I was so amazed with what was in there. I found out, according to the Jewish scriptures of the Messiah, would be from only one ancestry of all the ancestries on planet Earth. From King David, Yeshua, that’s His Hebrew name for Jesus. Was from the ancestry of King David. I found out in the twenty-second Psalm, this Messiah would die a certain type of death. And as I read Psalm 22, it was the most graphic description of crucifixion. Even to the point that after the crucifixion they would gamble for His robes. How did King David, who wrote the Psalms, know that? That they would literally cast lots for Jesus’ robes? Because it was seamless, they couldn’t tear it apart and divide it.
Micah the 5th chapter says that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem of Judea. Well, did you know that there were five Bethlehems at the time that Jesus came to earth? He just happened to be born in Bethlehem of Judea. You say, ‘That’s an interesting coincidence.’ My own orthodox Jewish father, he was born in Poland. He used to tell me about his father, my grandfather, walking by churches and spitting at the churches. My father could not understand, he couldn’t comprehend how his son became a believer in Jesus. There was great shame. But one day I had an opportunity to read to my father a scripture that is purposely eliminated from the daily readings in the synagogue. We read in the synagogue in our daily readings Isaiah 52 and Isaiah 54. Why do we skip Isaiah 53? Isaiah the 53rd chapter was written 800 years before Jesus came to earth. I’m gonna tell you why we eliminate it. I read this 53rd chapter of the Jewish prophet Isaiah to my orthodox Jewish father who did not want to believe Jesus was the Messiah. And he said, “Stop! You must be reading from a New Testament. You’re describing Jesus perfectly.”
Can I read that passage to you right now? Of course it wasn’t a New Testament. Isaiah the 53rd chapter written 800 years before Yeshua came to Earth:
Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
The report is the prophet’s report. So who is going to believe what the Jewish prophets are saying? That’s what Isaiah’s saying. Who is the arm of the Lord? That’s another name for the Messiah. Who was the Messiah revealed to? And then it describes the Messiah:
He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant and as a root out of dry ground.
Perhaps this alludes to His miraculous birth. Isaiah 7:14 says that a child would be born and this child’s name would be called Emmanuel, God is with us. Isaiah says:
He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant and as a root out of dry ground.
How does a root grow with no water? It describes a miraculous birth.
He’ll have no form or comeliness; and when we, that’s the Jewish people, see Him, there’ll be no beauty that we should desire Him. He’ll be despised and rejected by men. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And in the Hebrew, this talks about not just grief. It talks about sickness and pain. He’s going to bear not just our sins, not just our grief, but our sicknesses and our pain.
And we, Jewish people, hid as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised. And we did not esteem Him. But surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed Him stricken and smitten of God and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon Him. And by His stripes we are healed.
We’re totally restored to God. Oh, it’s so wonderful. This is what he says about my Jewish people in the 6th verse:
All we, Jewish people, like sheep, have gone astray. Every one of us is turned to His own way. And the Lord has laid upon Him, the Messiah, the iniquities, the sins, of us all.
It gets even more convincing. That’s why my father said, “Stop! You’re reading from the new covenant.” And so I held up my Tenakh that my orthodox Jewish rabbi, our orthodox Jewish rabbi, he gave me. It was even inscribed from Him. The rabbi had signed his name in the Tenakh. And my father looked at it and he had one of two choices: either yes, Jesus is the Jewish Messiah or what sadly he came up with, I always thought there was something wrong with that rabbi. Imagine, giving you a Tenakh that says that. I know it sounds meshuga, crazy, but sadly, it’s a true story. But before my father left this Earth, he experienced Yeshua, Jesus, the King of the Jews.
