We are often told: "Yahshua (Jesus) of Nazareth cannot have been the Messiah, for in Messiah's days there was to be universal peace on the earth, men were to beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks, nation should not lift up sword against nation, neither should they learn war any more" (Isa.2:4). Then it says that "in His days Judah shall be saved and Israel dwell safely" (Jer.23:6). "The wolf also shall lie down with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them...They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My hold mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Yahweh as the waters cover the sea" (Isa.11:6,9). Have any of these things come to pass? How then can Yahshua (Jesus) be Messiah?
Let us once more inquire into the "Law and in the Testimony" and see if we can find a solution of this difficulty.
Now if we turn over the pages of the Bible we must be struck by the fact that there are two distinct comings of the same Messiah. Not two Messiahs, Ben Joseph [1] and Ben David, the one coming to suffer and die in the attempt to rescue the faithful in Israel from the hands of Armillus, and the other, Ben David, afterwards coming to reign in glory, as some Jewish Rabbis would have us believe. There is not one verse in the whole Old Testament scriptures on which to build such a theory, but the same Messiah comes first to suffer and die, then the second time to reign and be glorified. On His first appearance He is born as a child in Bethlehem Ephratah (Micah 5:2), but the second time He comes as the Son of Man with the clouds of heaven (Dan.7:13). He comes once as the "man of sorrows and acquainted with grief", and "is despised and rejected" and "is cut off from the land of the living" (Is.53:3,8), but when He comes again it is to receive "dominion and glory and a kingdom that all people, nations, and languages should serve Him" (Isa.53; Dan.9:26), but "unto those who look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation" (Mal.3:1-2; 4:2; Heb.9:26,28).
After he comes the first time to be cut off, but not for Himself, "dreadful judgments were to befall our nation so that Jerusalem and the Temple were to be utterly destroyed" (Dan.9:26), "but when He comes the second time it is in a special and peculiar sense to bless Israel as a nation and to make Jerusalem a praise in the earth" (Isa.60; 61; 62; Jer.23:8; Ezek.36; 37; Zech.2:8,12; 12; 13; 14; the entire Scripture is full of this truth).
A comparison of the above-mentioned passages and characteristics, of which many more might be cited, must convince anyone that there are two distinct comings of the same Messiah. The fact of thye Messiah's resurrection from the dead is taught us by inference, for it is plainly foretold that at His first Advent He should "pour out His soul unto death", and "be cut off out of the land of the living", how then could He come a second time as the "Son of man with the clouds of heaven", if He did not rise from the dead and ascend into heaven first?
Yahshua (Jesus) of Nazareth has fulfilled to the very letter all the prophecies relating to the Messiah's first advent, and the period of His rejection by the Jewish nation, and the prophecies dealing especially with the Messiah's glorious reign on this earth will receive a like literal fulfilment when this same Yahshua (Jesus) returns, and when our nation will "look upon Him whom they have pierced, and mourn for Him (Zech.11:10).
Do not take counsel with yourself that if Yahshua (Jesus) is coming again it will be time for you and our nation to believe on Him and receive Him then, for firstly, you may die before His return, and if He Himself has solemnly declared that "if ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins" (John 8:24); and secondly, your acknowledgement that he is the Christ then will be of no avail: "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold now is the day of salvation"; but then will be a time of judgment, when Yahshua (Jesus) will come "in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who know not God (Yahweh) and obey not the Gospel of our Lord Yahshua the Messiah (Jesus Christ)". He will come, indeed, "but who may abide the day of His coming, and who shall stand when He appeareth?" (Mal.3:2)
Oh, haste to Him now, while He yet deals in mercy with mankind, and wait not for His second coming before you receive Him, for to those who reject Him now, that day will be "a day of darkness and not light, even very dark and no brightness in it" (Amos 5:18,20).
"But", you say, "our fathers who lived in the days of Yahshua (Jesus) of Nazareth settled the question for us, for had He been what Christians now represent Him to be they would not have rejected Him."
My dear brethren, if you look upon the fact that our fathers rejected Messiah (Christ) as an excuse why you should reject Him, then, on the same ground, to be consistent, you must also reject Moses and the prophets, for which of them did not our fathers reject and persecute? And as was the case with Yahshua (Jesus) so was it with all the other prophets; thet rejected and persecuted them, because being in the darkness thet could not bear the light; loving sin, they could not bear anyone who came preaching to them in righteousness. If a Zechariah reproves them for having forsaken the Lord and transgressed the commandments, then he must be slain if it be in the very house of God (Yahweh) (2 Chron.26:20-21). If a Jeremiah denounces judgments on them because of their sins, "This man is worthy of death", cry the princes, prophets, priests and people (Jer.26). If Isaiah warns them of the danger of "leaning on broken reeds" and pleads with them to turn to the living God, "Get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy one of Israel to cease from before us" is the unanimous answer (Isa.30:11). Did they not rebel against Moses and David? "Moreover, all the chief of the priests and the people transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen, and polluted the house of the Lord which He had hallowed in Jerusalem; and the Lord God (Yahweh-Elohim) of their fathers sent to them by His messengers, rising up betimes and sending, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place, but they mocked the messengers of God, and despised His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord rose against His people, till there aas no remedy" (2 Chron.36:14-16). And is it any wonder, or a thing impossible that they, who rejected and abused all the other prophets, should have done the same to the last great Prophet, who was also the Son of God (Yahweh)?
Not only did our fathers make the great mistake of calling "the good evil", but they also called "the evil good", and many times were misled to receive impostors as their Messiah, on which account they suffered dreadfully. Now, if they could mistake the wrong for the right, is it not possible that they should also have mistaken the right for the wrong? This is such a momentous question that we dare not leave our fathers to settle it for us, but must ourselves individually examine the claims of Yahshua (Jesus) of Nazareth, and if we find reasonable evidence which proves Him to be the Messiah, we must receive Him, or risk our soul's eternal salvation.
