Have you taken a good look at Luke 19 lately?  There are profound things in that chapter regarding Jesus’ mission to the Jewish people.  To set the stage, Jesus has spent about 3 years with His disciples, and with hundreds who followed Him from time-to-time.  In this passage in Luke, Jesus has made His way to Jerusalem for Passover…as every good Jew did.  However, this wasn’t just any Passover.  Jesus Himself would become the Passover Lamb before the week was through.

With that foundation, let’s pick it up in Luke 19:36-38 where the people were hailing Him as King.  Israel was looking for a king to save them from the oppression of the Roman government (among other things), so they were hopeful that Jesus was that king.

But very shortly, it became apparent that the people didn’t recognize Jesus as the Messiah, in whom the Hebrew Scriptures foretold.  In fact, the Jewish people totally missed the “coronation” of the One who would bring salvation to them.  Jesus lamented that fact only a few short verses later:

When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”
~Luke 19:41-44

Later that week, Jesus was crucified, buried, and resurrected.  Still, Hebrew minds could not conceive of Jesus as Messiah.  What kind of Messiah-King is crucified, rather than setting His people free from oppression?  In God’s Plan of the End, we find that, when the Jews failed to recognize their Messiah, God pressed the pause button on His plan for the Jewish people and inserted a time in which salvation could go out to the Gentiles. (For further study: Seventy Sevens and the Prophetic Pause)

Important note: God didn’t reject the Jewish people, nor did He declare the church the “New Israel,” as some teach.  He simply put His plan for the Jews on pause in order to bring salvation to the Gentiles, who would in turn “move to jealousy” (Romans 11:14) the Jewish people.  God will, one day soon, release the pause button and resume His plan for the Jews.  Meanwhile, in large part, Jewish eyes are veiled, making it difficult for them to see, recognize, and embrace Jesus as Messiah.

However, there is good news, my friends!  Not only will Jesus ultimately remove that veil so that all Israel will see Him and be saved (Romans 11:25-27), but by God’s amazing grace, some Jews are seeing Yeshua (Jesus) as Messiah even now!  Even more amazing: Jews who have met Messiah are reaching out to other Jews.  In fact, there are ministries made up of native Israelis carrying forth the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Messiah!

I want to introduce you to one such ministry:

Will you pray for One for Israel?  Ask the Lord to grant them wisdom and boldness as they introduce Yeshua (Jesus) to other Israelis.  Pray, also, that the hearts of those they reach will be fertile soil into which these Jewish evangelist are able to plant seeds!

I don’t know about you, but I get really excited about this!  The Lord God is beginning to remove the veil that has, for centuries, covered the eyes of the Jewish people.  I believe God is about to release the pause button and resume His glorious plan for the Jewish people!  As believers, let’s pray to that end!