Isaiah [Part 19] - The Jewish Hope for Messiah

Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.

Shalom. We’re in Isaiah 63, and this is a continuation of Isaiah 63 from verse 9 down to the end. The first lesson was of the first verses of Isaiah 63. It’s very important that you go back and see the first video on chapter 63 if you see this, without seeing and listening to the first lesson. Please go back to Isaiah 63, lesson one. And before you get into lesson two, please read the whole chapter 63 of Isaiah from the beginning to the end. It’s not a very long chapter, and it’s very important that you get the full picture because I’m jumping now from verse 9. I already spoke about verse 9, but I want to just summarize it.

The speaker is the Messiah, God Himself, in this text. It’s hard to distinguish between God and the Messiah in this text. And, He is being addressed and addresses Himself in relationship to His mission. I would say that the end-time mission of the Messiah, and that’s what the second coming is in the picture. Isaiah 53 is the first coming, the suffering Messiah; Isaiah 63 is the second coming, a different kind of Messiah. Still the Messiah, according to Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra, a medieval Rabbi, and some of the other rabbis joined with Ibn Ezra to say this is the Messiah and God Himself. Very interesting, within rabbinical Judaism.

So, I’m going to quickly, from verse 9, just read it:

You know, when we had trouble, when we were in the gas chambers in Russia, in Ukraine, in Moldova, in Eastern Europe, and in Germany and in Holland, the Messiah was there with us. As a Jew, He suffered with us in His heart, in His spirit, seeing how His own kin folks, His own Jewish people, are suffering by who? By His own disciples, people who claim to be Christians—Lutherans, Catholics, Protestants, even Pentecostals, Baptists, Methodists, Churches of Christ—yes, dear brothers and sisters.

Isaiah says He suffered together with us, with our troubles, He is the angel of His presence, of God’s presence, and He delivered them. Prophetically, yes, it’s in past tense, but its pluperfect. In other words, past tense that describes what’s going to be in the future.

Yep, that Redemption of Israel was done prophetically when the Lamb of God was slain, even before the creation of the world, according to Revelation.

But yes, we’re a rebellious nation; we grieved Him, we grieved God, we grieved His Holy Spirit. That’s verse 10. 'Then He became our enemy', at least for a season, for a chapter in history, 'and He warred against us.' But then they, Israel, will remember the days of old, the days of the ancient relationship of Israel with God. They will remember drinking water from the Rock. They will remember that He brought us across the sea on dry land. We’ll remember that the Shepherd of His flock is walking in their midst in His Holy Spirit, the One who partnered and walked with Moses in the wilderness and divided the water of the sea for them.

That’s First Corinthians chapter 10, folks. I mentioned in the earlier lesson, it’s worth reading the first 10 verses of chapter 10 of First Corinthians to see this.

In other words, in this way You shepherd Your people to win for Yourself a glorious name.

Verse 15:

The people are speaking. Till here, the writer, the narrator, is speaking about God and the Messiah. Now the people of Israel are speaking. I get goosebumps reading this, folks.

Yes, they were withheld from us, and they are being withheld from us yet because of the hardness of our heart.

Oh wow, wow, wow. This is the Jewish people, the nation of Israel, speaking these words in the pen and the writing of Isaiah the prophet in the 8th century BC.

Continuing to verse 17 of chapter 63:

They are Your very own people. We know that it’s going to happen, whatever Isaiah speaks here; we know it’s going to happen. Chapter 7 of the Book of Revelation talks about the 12 tribes, 12,000. It’s an imaginary number; it’s not an arithmetic number. It is a typological number, meaning the tribes of Israel.

There is no nation in the world, folks, brothers and sisters, that is waiting for the Messiah more than the Jewish Nation. Christians are arguing about pre-tribulation, post-tribulation, premillennial, post-millennial, mid-tribulation—all these things dividing the churches. The Jews are sincerely, sincerely, every day praying for the coming of the Messiah, and they believe He is going to come. And the signs of the time point to the fact that He might. I am not a false prophet; I’m not going to say for sure, but He might come at any hour because this is the teaching of the Gospel. In Matthew 24, there were two people plowing the field; one will be taken, the other one will continue plowing or fall down. It will be a surprise. Nobody knows when and how. Vain arguments that divide churches.

But Isaiah, the prophet in the 8th century, says:

As if, in other words, we have estranged ourselves from God; we’ve forgotten God. And the prophet says:

We’re waiting for You. We want You, God. Lord, come back. Shake up the earth, as the prophet has spoken, as the Book of Revelation speaks. We need You, Father. We can’t see with our eyes and with our minds and with our hearts how this world is going to continue—how the evil, how the disorder, how the immorality, how the violence is going to continue in this world. We need You, Father. Come back. We are Your people. Come back. We’re waiting to see the mountains quake, the heavens open, the Son of Man descending here on Mount Zion in Jerusalem, the Mount of Olives, where He ascended. He’s going to descend as He promised.

So for now, dear brothers and sisters, read Isaiah 63 again. It’s got so many wonderful promises, so many secrets embedded in the text. Secrets for us as a Jewish Nation. Even though we read Isaiah, we read the prophets, but our eyes need to be sharper, more open so that we can accept these words and accept the One who is speaking them out: the Messiah, our Savior, and our Redeemer, Yeshua.