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.
