Why Are the Jewish Roots of Christianity Important for Believers to Know (Part 2)?

The Jewish roots of Christianity are important for Believers because they are tied to how God fulfills prophecy.

Understanding the Jewish roots of Christianity equips us to answer the Kingdom’s call in these last days. In this podcast, Rabbi Curt Landry explains how Isaiah 60 is a prophetic word that describes the blessings released by Jews and Gentiles coming together.

The key is knowing and understanding God’s design of Gentiles being grafted in and understanding their inheritance of the Lord.

• Who are they grafted into? The nation of Israel, the Jewish people (see Romans 11:17-18)
• What inheritance do they share? The promises made by God to the Jewish people (see Ephesians 2:12-20).

Discover the prophetic significance of understanding the Jewish roots of Christianity in these last days in this powerful podcast!

Transcription from Podcast (Revised for Readability)

Why are the Jewish roots of Christianity important to believers today regarding fulfilling Bible prophecy? This is unique to our ministry. We have been involved in ministries where Jews and Gentiles come together. Actually, that’s how it’s scripted in the prophetic Word of God. 

It’s important for us to not only understand our own Jewish roots of Christianity but to be able to answer the call to be a part of what God is doing in fulfilling Bible prophecy with the Jewish roots of the faith.

My Story

So I’ll share with you my own story. I got saved in 1989 during the Feast of Tabernacles. I was radically saved in a bathtub. 

We had just finished building a custom home on the plateau up in Issaquah, Washington State, and I had promised my in-laws that I would send Christie and Megann back once a year to Oklahoma. I fulfilled that. 

We were finishing out the last quarter of the year (at work). I was employee of the year. My department had tremendous success and increase. In fact, I was going to be on the magazine, front cover of the magazine, of the annual magazine of this corporation for what our department had done. Since Christie and Megann were in Oklahoma, I had planned to celebrate myself.

I got a bottle of Cristal champagne. I had a beautiful master suite with a big bathtub and a sound system. I was in the consumer electronics business, so I had a beautiful stereo system in this room and a crystal flute with my Cristal champagne. I was the big shot and planned to celebrate in this nice hot tub.

Lo and Behold… I Never Got to Sip the Champagne

Lo and behold, I never got to sip the champagne or put the music on. Jesus, Himself, came into this bathroom behind me, and I had an encounter. (You can read about it in my book, Reclaiming A Forgotten Heritage.)

The next week, I got fired from my bigshot job even though I had made the company millions of dollars. They said, “Listen, we hired a director,” a finance director in this area and marketing. They said, “We didn’t hire a Jesus freak.” 

The Lord provided another job with some Christian men in the fruit business. As we started to go to church at Grace Church in Redmond, Washington with Pastor Steve and Julie Gutzler. We had meetings with people and would pray in the mornings together.  These were groups of Jewish Believers and non-Jewish Believers. They were modern-day apostolic and prophetic–a term that I was not familiar with. 

Isaiah 60’s Prophetic Word! 

We were praying out of the Word of God in Isaiah 60 where it says, “Arise and shine for your light has come! And the glory of the Lord is risen upon you. For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and a deep darkness the people; but the Lord will arise over you, and His glory will be seen upon you.” 

Then it says, “The Gentiles shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.”

So then, what does this mean?

The nation of Israel and the Jewish people are rising. The effect of the light being turned on is that these non-Jews will come to the light. If you think about how many people have visited the Holy Land on tours over the years since 1948, they definitely have come to light in the millions. 

It goes on to say in verses 4–7, 

• “Lift up your eyes around, and see: They all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from afar, and your daughters shall be nursed by your side. Then you shall see and become radiant, and your heart shall swell with joy; because the abundance of the sea shall be turned to you, and the wealth of the Gentile shall come to you. A multitude of camels shall cover your land, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; and those from Sheba shall come; they shall bring gold, their incense, and they shall proclaim praises of the Lord. All the flocks of Kedar shall gather together to you, and the rams of Nebaioth shall minister to you; they shall ascend with acceptance on My altar, and I will glorify the house of My glory.” 

And so we’re asking, “Okay, what is this that they shall return with their nursing babes?”

We translated this out in 1989. The Jewish people were going to start returning to the land of Israel and, according to the Scripture I just read, the Gentiles were going to provide the finances and the gold to be able to do this. 

Verse 8 says, 

• “Who are these who fly like a cloud, and like doves to their roosts?” 

The Jewish prophet in the group said that he had a vision in this prayer meeting. 

• He said, “What the prophet Isaiah, I believe he was seeing, was a 747. A 747 full of Jewish people flying from Moscow back to Tel Aviv, to the land of Israel.” 

Verses 9–12 say, 

• “Surely the coastlands wait for Me; and the ships of Tarshish shall come first and bring your sons from afar off, their silver and their gold with them, to the name of the Lord your God, and to the Holy One of Israel because He has glorified you. The sons of foreigners shall build up your walls, and their kings shall minister to you; for in My wrath I struck you, but in My favor I have had mercy on you. Therefore your gates shall be open continually; they shall not be shut day or night, that men may bring to you the wealth of the Gentiles, and their kings in procession. For the nation and kingdom which will not serve you shall perish, and those nations shall be utterly ruined.”

As we read this scripture, the Lord gave us a strategy for what we call Aliyah–the return of the Jewish people, the Exodus 2, where people leave the former Soviet Union, Ukraine, Belarus, and all those areas.  We worked with a Jewish agency with airplanes, literally Jew and Gentile coming together. 

This is why it is important for us to be able to understand the Jewish roots of the faith. The Jewish people did their part and now the Gentiles do their part by providing for this return. The two came together, and now millions of Jewish people have returned from the former Soviet Union and the North back to the land of Israel. They’ve made Aliyah, and they’ve returned!

Organizations funded by Christians and Jews operating together as one new man have helped in this return. There are many organizations where this prophetic word has come to pass.

Why Did God Bless This Endeavor?

Why did God bless with millions and millions of dollars to bring millions and millions of His Jewish people from the North? It was to fulfill the Bible prophecy. It took Christians who had that Hebraic understanding of their responsibility and what they were called to do. 

Amos 9’s Prophetic Word! 

I’ll give you another example. One of the reasons we started tree sponsorships in Israel was to allow the nations to be able to fulfill Bible prophecy by planting and sponsoring all of the trees in the nation of Israel. 

Amos 9:11-15 says…

•  “‘On that day I will raise up the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down, and repair its damages; I will raise up its ruins, and rebuild it as in the days of old; that they may possess the remnant of Edom, and all the Gentiles who are called by My name,’ says the Lord who does this thing. ‘Behold, the days are coming,’ says the Lord, ‘when the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him who sows seed; the mountains shall drip with sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it. I will bring back the captives of My people Israel; they shall build the waste cities and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink wine from them; they shall also make gardens and eat fruit from them. I will plant them in their land, and no longer shall they be pulled up from the land I have given them,’ says the Lord your God.”

Here’s another example of understanding the Jewish roots of Christianity and the prophetic significance of being attuned to your own Jewish roots of the faith.

Let’s take this passage and look at the prophetic significance…

• “’On that day, I will raise up the tabernacle of David which has fallen down and repair its damages and raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in days of old that they,” (speaking of Israel), “May possess the remnant of Edom,” (which is the modern-day Negev,) “And all the Gentiles who are called by My name,’ says the Lord does this thing.’”

So here you have Jewish people, just like the Baton family we work with just outside of Sdot in the Negev. So what do they do? They have a farm. We provide the nursery stock of olive trees, the irrigation, all the plastic tubing, and all the valves. We provide the pumps for the water irrigation system. They do all the farming and the maintaining, and we actually provide the back end on the finance, and that is literally fulfilling this scripture!

Verses 13-15 say (Rabbi recites from memory),

• “And behold the days are coming, says the Lord, when the plowman shall overtake the reaper, the treader of grapes, he who sows seeds, and the mountains shall drip with sweet wine and all the hills shall flow with it. I will bring back your captives, Israel….They shall make gardens or oil trees and eat fruit from them. I will plant them in their land and they shall no longer be pulled up for the land I will give them,’ says the Lord of hosts.”

This is what we read about in Isaiah 60, Jews and Gentiles come together to bring the Jews from the north back to the land. Then, as Gentiles, we partner with them to replenish, rebuild, and renew the land. 

You can be a part of this biblical prophecy fulfillment too! Go here and sponsor an olive tree this season. Here’s the key: What you make happen for others is what happens to you. So if you want to be able to take care of your mortgage and your protection, then sow a seed and sponsor a tree. Plant a tree, and make a declaration in ancient Edom, the modern-day Negev. When you plant, you are saying to the Lord, “I’m planting a tree recognizing the Jewish people’s rights to be established in the land according to the covenant God made with Abraham. I also plant a tree on behalf of myself by faith, saying that I belong debt free in my land.” Do you see the spiritual principle there?

The Jewish Roots in Romans 11

Understanding the Jewish roots of Christianity is very important. Paul talked about them in Romans. 

In Romans 11:25, he wrote… 

• “For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.”

Romans 11:12 says… 

• “Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness!” (emphasis added)

So that’s what’s happening. Right now, you have a Jewish Believer speaking to you, and I’ve been leading a congregation of House of David for 22 years with a Gentile and First Nations brother, Pastor Tim Osbaugh. He and I have been co-pastoring House of David, the One New Man Embassy in Fairland, Oklahoma, for more than 22 years together. That is, that’s One New Man. That’s a fulfillment of Bible prophecy.

The Fig Tree Is Blossoming

In Matthew 24:32, Jesus said, “Now learn this parable from the fig tree: When its branch has already become tender and puts forth leaves, you know that summer is near.”

This is the key… the fig tree is Israel. If you’re not looking at the Jewish people, the nation of Israel, and Jerusalem as the plum line from Heaven to earth, you won’t be able to discern Jesus’ statement in Matthew 24:6-7…

• “And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places.”

When you don’t understand the Jewish roots of Christianity, your timing is off. There is a relationship between timing and peace. If you want to experience God’s love, it’s good to have your feet up under His table during His appointed times. Through these experiences, His Spirit will give you a deeper revelation of the things in His heart.  

One thing I love about the restored Jewish roots of Christianity is that it gives you a purpose as a non-Jewish person to say…

• “Yes, I have been grafted in. I am welcome at Passover. I am welcome at Shavuot. I am welcome at Pentecost. I am welcome at Rosh Hashanah, the Feast of Trumpets. I am welcome at the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur. I am welcome at the Feast of Sukolt during the Feast of Tabernacles. I can celebrate with my children, even at Christmas, the story of Hanukkah and the wonders of being a small warring Maccabean family that actually helped restore the temple and restore the identity of a nation back to its original form,” and that’s what we’re doing right now in America, in Jesus’ name.

Understanding these stories makes you feel a part of the family you’ve been grafted into. These feasts and roots haven’t been put away with or given away. They’re still effective today. They are keys to your personal identity and family line. They help strengthen your relationship with a loving God. 

Return to God. Return to Your Roots.

You want to be loved. I know that you’re spiritual, and I know you want spiritual results, but you need a formula. A formula’s not legalism. The formula is, “Return to me,’ says the Lord, ‘and I’ll return to you,” and the key to returning is we’re returning to His ways and His instruction.

The scripture says, “My ways aren’t your ways. They’re higher than your ways.” One of the things that we need to do when we return to the Lord is listening. Listen to this scripture here…

• It says, “For I am the Lord,” Malachi 3:6. “I do not change. Therefore, you are not consumed, oh Jacob. Yet from the days of your father, you have gone away from My ordinances and you have not kept them. Return to me,” and He says, “And I will return to you, says the Lord of host. But you said, In what way shall we return?” And God responds through the prophet, “Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed me. But you say, “In what way have we robbed You?” In tithes and offering? You are cursed with a curse for you have robbed Me, even this whole nation. Bring all the tithes into the storehouse that there might be food in My house and try Me. Try Me now in this,” says the Lord of hosts, “If I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out such a blessing that there’ll not be room enough to receive it. Yes, and I’ll rebuke the devourer for your sake so that you will not be destroyed, the fruit of your ground, nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field,” says the Lord of hosts, “And all the nations shall call you blessed for you will be a delightful land,” says the Lord of hosts.”

Isn’t that beautiful? 

The Lord is inviting One New Man, Jew and Gentile, those who understand the Jewish roots of Christianity, to return. 

If we return to the Lord with our tithes and our offering (our special offerings at Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles), making them pleasant unto the Lord as of ancient of days, as it says in verse four of Malachi 3, and place our feet under His table, three times a year, that the Jewish roots of the faith did not just become a celebration of joy and blessing, but your true identity is uncorked and the sweetness of the wine of your life is being poured out for the world to taste and see it’s good.

You don’t have to worry. If you follow God’s ways, all the nations will call you blessed. All of them will taste and see the Lord through your life, and they’ll say, “Hmm, indeed, this is a delightful land and a delightful person,” says the Lord of host. There’s nothing more attractive than the favor of God, which is like the Rose of Sharon. It’s like that shining shekhinah glory that the Lord puts around people who have been with Him.

Closing Prayer

Father God, in the name of Yeshua, thank You for each who’s listening. Graft them into their own Jewish roots, that the sap of God and the true identity of their purpose might flow through their life, that they might experience Your love, Your joy, Your peace, and Your hope during this holiday season.

God bless you. Let’s talk to you next time. Shalom.

Bio

Curt Landry, founder of Curt Landry Ministries, and his wife, Christie, travel extensively, preaching and teaching about the Jewish roots of the Christian faith. Together, their passion is to empower families to live and leave Kingdom legacies and understand their own personal heritage.