Christians, to be especially careful that they take up stumbling blocks
land without the Gospel, like Mongolia or China, is nothing better than a moral wilderness. See the vast difference between Europe and America with the Gospel, notwithstanding all their vices — and Africa and Asia without it. But do we ever reflect that the first preachers of that Gospel were all Jews? The men who, at cost of their lives, first carried from town to town the blessed tidings of Christ crucified, were not Gentiles. The first to take up the lamp of truth, which was passed from hand to hand until it reached our heathen forefathers — were all men of Israel.
We rejoice in Christ Jesus and glory in His person and work. Well may we do so! Without a living Savior and the blood of His atonement once made on the cross — we would indeed be miserable. But do we ever reflect that when that Savior became a man, in order that as man's substitute He might live, and suffer and die — He was born of a Jewish woman? Yes, let that never be forgotten! When "God was manifest in the flesh" and was "born of a woman," that woman was a virgin of the house of David. When the promised Savior took flesh and blood that He might bruise the serpent's head and redeem man — He took not flesh and blood of any royal house among the Gentiles — but of one of the twelve tribes of Israel.
Reader, I know well that these are ancient things. They have been often urged, often alleged, often pressed on the attention of the Churches. I am not ashamed to bring them forward again. I say, that if there be such a thing as gratitude in the heart of man, it is the duty of all Gentile Christians to take special interest in the work of doing good to the Jews.
2. I believe, furthermore, that it is a duty incumbent on all Gentile Christians, to be especially careful that they take up stumbling blocks out of the way of Israel, and too that they do nothing to disgust them with Christianity or hinder their conversion. This is a matter which is expressly mentioned in Scripture. There we find Isaiah bidding us, "Take up the stumbling blocks out of the way of God's people" (Isaiah 57:14). Truly the Prophet might well speak of this. No man can look
round the Gentile Churches, and fail to see that he had cause. What shall we say of the glaring unholiness and neglect of God's Ten Commandments which prevail so widely in Christendom? What shall we say of the open unblushing idolatry which offends the eye in all Roman Catholic Churches? What shall we say of the rationalistic mode of interpreting Old Testament history, which has crept so extensively into modern commentaries — the system of regarding the histories of Abraham, Jacob, Joseph and the like, as so many myths or ingenious fables, but not as narratives of facts which really took place? What shall we say of the traditional mode of interpreting Old Testament prophecies, in which so many Christians indulge the system of appropriating all the blessings to the Church of Christ and handing over all the bitter things to poor despised Israel; the system of interpreting all prophecies about Christ's first advent literally — and all prophecies about His second advent figuratively; requiring the Jew to believe the first in the letter — and refusing in turn to believe the second, except in what is called (by a sad misnomer) a spiritual sense?
What shall we say of all these things but that they are stumbling blocks — great stumbling blocks in the way of the conversion of the Jews? What are they all but great barriers between the Jew and Christ, and barriers cast up by Christian hands?
Reader, we must all do our part in aiding to take these stumbling blocks away. Here at least all may help. Here, at any rate, every Gentile Christian can aid the Jewish cause. The more pure and lovely we can make our holy faith — the more we are likely to recommend it to Israel. The more we can check the progress of the Roman apostasy, and protest against its idolatries and corruptions — the more likely is the Jew to believe there is something in Christianity. The more we can promote the habit of taking all of Scripture in its plain literal sense, the more we are likely to remove prejudices in the minds of honest inquirers in Israel, and to make them ready to hear what we have to say.