Rabbi Schneider - David: A Type of Messiah
This is really important stuff because we need to be grounded in the soil of God's Word. And when we see how Messiah Yeshua is the only one that has ever lived or will ever live that qualifies to be the Messiah, it will root us and ground us in a culture today that no longer, by and large, is staying on track with the true biblical faith that was laid down once and for all. The apostle Paul said, "In the last days, many will depart from the faith". And he said, "If anyone comes preaching a different gospel than the one that I preach, let him be a curse". But today what we're finding is that the culture has so compromised the truth that people can no longer tell the difference between the true gospel and another gospel, as Paul called it, that's being preached.
So we need to be rooted in God's Word. One of the fallacies that's being communicated today, even in some facets of the church, is that not everybody needs Jesus. Some parts of the church basically, they say worship Jesus, they say they believe in Him, but they think, "Who am I to push my faith in Yeshua on somebody else? We respect all religions". If they really believe what the Bible had to say, where Jesus, for example, said, "Unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins," if people really believe that, they would understand they do need to tell others about Jesus. That not every way does lead to heaven. Jesus said, "The way is straight and narrow that leads to life and few there be that find it. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but through me". And so, understanding messianic prophecy and getting your faith rooted in it will help you to stay founded and grounded in the faith that was once and for all delivered to the saints.
Before I move forward, beloved one, today, and give another predictive prophecy, I want to share with you one final point about all this. The Scriptures tell us that in the last days...Jesus Himself said this about the last days before His return. He said, "Things will become so dark," he said, "that if it were possible, even the very elect would be deceived". How do you keep from being deceived? You keep from being deceived by being rooted in the written word of God. And so, this is why it's important to understand messianic prophecy and why Jesus is the only Messiah, the only Savior that has ever lived or ever will live. And by understanding that what He said is the truth. And the truth is not determined by what the culture says. The truth is not determined by what people around us are saying. The truth is determined, beloved, by the word of God.
So let's continue today. We're talking about messianic prophecy and how Jesus alone qualifies as the Messiah. Last week we talked about how the Scriptures told us that the Messiah would come through the bloodline of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and then through Jacob's son, Judah, who became the head of the tribe of Judah. In fact, today, what we call the Jewish people are primarily descendants from only two of the original 12 tribes. The tribe of Judah is the largest and the tribe of Benjamin. So when you meet a Jewish person today, generally speaking, they're either from the tribe of Judah or the tribe of Benjamin, who compose the southern kingdom. The northern kingdom was basically lost. We call them now the ten lost tribes. So Messiah was to come through the tribe of Judah. And this is where we get the word Jew from today.
So just educate you, when you speak of a Jewish person, you know, you're not speaking of 10 of the 12 tribes, generally speaking. A Jewish person has become symbolic of Israel, but predominantly Jewish people today are from the tribe of Judah, and then a smaller portion of them from the tribe of Benjamin. Now, that's what we covered last week. We're going to take this further down the trail today when we look to messianic prophecy to determine the line that Messiah would come into the world from. And as we continue down the tribe of Judah, we find that there's a specific individual in the line of Judah through who Messiah would come. And this is the character, the patriarch, the great king of Israel, Dovid Melech-David.
Let's read what we find here, the book of Jeremiah 33:14 and 15 as it relates to David, and the Messiah coming forth through his bloodline. "'Behold,' Jeremiah is writing, 'days are coming,' declares the Lord, 'when I will fulfill the good word which I have spoken concerning the house of Israel and the house of Judah.'" Again, Israel is the northern kingdom and Judah was the southern kingdom. "In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch of David to spring forth; and he shall execute justice and righteousness on the earth". Jeremiah wrote a lot about the new covenant, about what would happen when Messiah came. How Messiah would come in and usher in a new covenant, how God would circumcise our hearts through Messiah in this new covenant. And he said that this new covenant would be executed and inaugurated through someone that came through David's bloodline. And when this one came forth, he would execute justice and righteousness on the earth. Jesus Himself said He was the offspring of David.
Let me continue though. Before I looked at Jesus' words, let's look at what Ezekiel had to say. Ezekiel 34:23 and 24. "Then I will set over them one shepherd, My servant David, and he will feed them; he will feed them himself and be their shepherd. And I, the Lord, will be their God, and My servant David will be prince among them; I the Lord, have spoken". Now let's put this in perspective here. When Ezekiel wrote this, David, who the Hebrew Bible writes about in the prophetic writings and the other writings of Scriptures, the king of Israel, David had already lived and died. David who was king of Israel thousands of years ago, he was gone. And so Ezekiel is writing after David has passed away. So who is Ezekiel referring to when he says this? Once again, Ezekiel is writing, Ezekiel is living after David the king of Israel had passed away.
And so listen to what Ezekiel said. "Then I will set over them one shepherd, My servant David", but remember, David had already passed away, "and he will feed them; he will feed them himself and be their shepherd. And I, the Lord, will be their God, and My servant David will be prince among them; I the Lord have spoken". So who is Ezekiel referring to? Is he referring to the ancient king of Israel who brought forth Solomon? Is he referring to that David that's going to reign over his people? Is he coming back? Is he going to be reincarnated? No. What Ezekiel was writing about here was Yeshua, who identifies Himself as David's offspring. So listen to what Jesus Himself said. In Revelation 22, he said, "I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things for the churches". He's speaking about his return. And he said, "I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright and morning star".
And so, Ezekiel here is using David as a code word for the Messiah. Yeshua came through Dovid Melech, the ancient king of Israel, through his bloodline. David was type of Messiah, but Yeshua Himself takes on the prophetic mantle. In other words, Dovid Melech, the ancient king of Israel, he ruled Israel. But Jesus takes on the fullness of that mantle by becoming Israel's divine king forever. This is why Yeshua said, "I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright and morning star".
And so, Ezekiel was referring to this coming person of David, who is Yeshua Himself. That's why I was saying earlier sometimes messianic prophecy is more art than science and more music than math. And we have to understand the heart that was being moved by inspiration of the Ruach HaKodesh that was writing it. Yeshua fulfills Israel's history, even as David was a king of Israel ruling the nation so that prophetic mantle of kingship ultimately rests upon Jesus. And that's why Ezekiel is saying that David's going to come and he's going to rule my people forever. Remember, King David of ancient Israel already passed away. Ezekiel wasn't talking about him being reincarnated. He was pointing to the future of Yeshua, who said in Revelation 22, "I am coming and I am the offspring of David. I'm the One that Ezekiel was referring to".
Now, it's also interesting to note that as we continue on moving down, beloved, a slightly different track that in the book of Luke chapter 3, Luke traces Yeshua's genealogy through David. But Luke is tracing Yeshua's genealogy through his mother Myriam or Mary. Why that's interesting is because in ancient Israel genealogies were traced through the male. It was a patriarchal society. In other words, the identity of a child was determined by the father. So we have, for example, in the life of Moses, when he married a Midianite woman that wasn't Jewish but yet Moses' children were still Jewish because Moses was a Hebrew.
Jewish isn't technically the right term. It would be Hebrew. But the identity was determined by the man. We see the same thing in most of the Old Testament, most of the Hebrew Bible, the identity of the child was determined by the father. Even recently, we look at the Ethiopian Jews. There was a tribe of people living in Ethiopia that were practicing Judaism. They claim they were Jews. And so the nation of Israel, the State of Israel carefully investigated this tribe living in Ethiopia as Jews. And what they determined was that this tribe in Ethiopia were actually from the tribe of Dan. And so Israel actually flew them, they took them into Israel, admitted them as citizens.
Now, the Ethiopian Jews themselves believe that Solomon was their ancient father along with the Queen of Sheba. Now, the Queen of Sheba, she was not an Israelite. She was not a Jew, but Solomon was. And so again, we have an example of the identity of the child being determined by the father. It wasn't the Queen of Sheba that determine whether these Ethiopian Jews were Jewish; it was Solomon. The State of Israel believes they were his descendants. But what we have going on right now within modern Judaism and even in the State of Israel is that the Rabbinic courts are not determining a child's identity as to whether the child was born to a Jewish father. But now they're saying it's whether the mother is Jewish that determines the identity as to whether the person is a Jew or not. And there are many different arguments as to why that is.
For the record, both my mom and dad are Jewish. I'm 100% full Ashkenazi Jew, a descendant from Jewish people coming out of Europe. But in my view, personally, I consider someone a Jew biologically if their father or mother is Jewish because I see the evidence going both directions. But that was just a bit of a tangent. I wanted to make a note for a moment. We're getting back now to where we started on this track, and we're talking about how Yeshua came through the line of David. And we trace that to His own words in the book of Revelation, as well as to the genealogy in the book of Luke chapter 3. Here's something interesting. Think about this. We're going to the book of Matthew chapter 22. This is a really interesting dialogue between Yeshua and the Pharisees that relates to David.
Matthew 22, hear the Word of God. "Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question: 'What do you think about the Christ...?'" Now again, "Christ" is just the Greek word for the "Anointed One". And since God's purpose in Yeshua was to reach the entire world, and the most common language of the world during the time that the New Testament was written was Greek, the Lord had the New Testament recorded in Greek. But the word "Christ" is just the equivalent of the Hebrew word "HaMashiach" or Messiah, the Anointed One. "What do you think about the Messiah? What do you think about the Mashiach, the Anointed One, the Christ, whose son is He"? Yeshua is asking the Pharisees. "And they said to Him, 'The son of David.'"
Remember now we've been focusing on Yeshua coming through the line of David. So here you see Jewish people 2,000 years ago, as they were looking for the Messiah, they understood that Messiah would come through the line of David. So let me read it again. "Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question: 'What do you think about the Christ, whose son is He?' They said to Him, 'The son of David.' He said to them, 'How then does David in the Spirit call Him 'Lord,' saying'", and now He's quoting Psalm 110:1, "...the Lord said to my Lord, 'Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies beneath your feet?' If David then calls Him, 'Lord,' how is He his son"?
Do you see how Yeshua was really messing them up? Because He asked them a question, "Whose son is the Messiah"? They said, "He's David's son". And then Yeshua quoted David in Psalm 110 as David spoke about the Messiah. And David said there, "The Lord said to my Lord". So Father God said to my Lord the Messiah, "Sit here until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet". So Jesus said to the Pharisees, "How is He David's son if David calls Him his Lord"? And of course, what Yeshua was pointing to here is that Yeshua is not only born of man, but He's also God incarnate. He's the Lord. And this question so brought confusion and so much agitated, and so was unanswerable to the Pharisees, the Bible says that after that, they didn't ask Him any more questions. I mean, I'm amazed at the wisdom and the genius of Yeshua as I read how He handled Himself through the entire Brit Chadasha-through the entire New Testament.
Well, beloved, as we close today, we've examined Yeshua's coming into the earth, and how God in His mercy and faithfulness told us we could recognize Him, because this would be the genealogy through which He would come. The Scripture tells us that there is salvation in no other name but the name of Yeshua HaMashiach-in the name of Jesus the Messiah. I want to encourage you today, beloved ones, we need to be bold in our faith for Yeshua. We're living in an age, as I've said so many times, of political correctness, where the highest ideal in our society today is to get along with everybody. The highest ideal is to include everybody. The highest ideal is not to discriminate. The highest ideal is to get along with everybody.
But the problem with that is that in order to do that, in order to be politically correct, in order to not create any waves, you have to compromise. Because the Bible said, "All that desire to live godly in Christ Jesus shall be persecuted. If they persecute me, they'll persecute you". "Whoa to you," He said, "If all men speak well of you, for thus they did with the false prophets of old". The false prophets that just tried to comfort everybody. The false prophets that just tried to make everybody feel good. No. Jesus is the only way. Messianic prophecy roots us in the fact that there's only one way, there's only one God, there's only one path that leads to salvation. And our mission on the Earth right now is to seek Him to know Him, so that we can be transformed into His likeness, and beloved, to boldly proclaim Him. And when we preach Him throughout the entire world, then He shall return. Be bold and be His witness.