Considered part of the “pulpit of the American Revolution,” and a leading advocate of the separation of church and state in Revolutionary-era America, Baptist pastor Isaac Backus was a pillar of early American evangelical thought. His works such as Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty and Government and Liberty Described and Ecclesiastical Tyranny Exposed open a valuable window into early America and the development of the ideals of religious liberty.

In this discourse, American Baptist pastor Isaac Baptist examines Acts 13:27, offering insights for understanding why Jews did not recognize Jesus as the Messiah, and fulfilled prophecy by rejecting him. Backus first offers a brief survey of “the voices of the prophets of the Old Testament, which were exactly fulfilled in Jesus,” and then considers the “reason why the Jews did not receive him, though they had so often heard these plain predictions.”