Dear Friends,
“And in that day I will set about to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.” (Zechariah 12:9) Why is the world so divided over the tiny nation of Israel not much larger than the state of New Jersey the fifth smallest US state? And, more importantly, why are Christians so divided over God’s plan for the nation of Israel. Our understanding of God’s plan for the nation of Israel affects us spiritually, racially, politically and eternally. We would be wise to understand it as there are consequences for disobeying Genesis 12:3.
I have included two links that include a summary of how the church has mistreated Israel over the centuries. One is from Dr. David Reagan and one is a summary from a teaching I did on the end of anti-Semitism. (http://christinprophecy.org/articles/the-evil-of-replacement-theology/ http://www.lensykes.com/archives/1941) If you take the time to read these you will be shocked at the way the church, both catholic and protestant, has persecuted and murdered Jewish people over the centuries. Just one example, in his pamphlet On the Jews and Their Lies Martin Luther advocates an eight-point plan to get rid of the Jews as a distinct group either by religious conversion or by expulsion and concludes with this statement: “If we wish to wash our hands of the Jews’ blasphemy and not share in their guilt, we have to part company with them. They must be driven from our country and we must drive them out like mad dogs.” Years later Adolf Hitler said this about Luther: “Luther was a great man. He saw clearly that the Jews need to be destroyed and we’re only beginning to see that we need to carry this work on.” (See link from Dr. Reagan above)
We shouldn’t treat animals the way the church has treated Jews, fellow humans created in the image of God. What has caused this incredible hatred? As Dr. Michael Brown says, “What then is the explanation for anti-Semitism in the world? It is simply this: God has singled out the Jewish people as His instrument for world redemption, He has promised that they will always remain on the earth as a distinct people—despite their sins and failures—and the devil himself has marked them out for destruction. Ultimately, it is through the Jewish people that the knowledge of the one true God has come to the world, through the Jewish people that the Messiah has come, and through the Jewish people that the message of the Messiah went to the nations. (Romans 9:1-5) And it is the Jewish people in Jerusalem who will ultimately welcome the Messiah back to earth to set up His kingdom (see Matthew 23:37-39). That’s why the devil hates them so! As I wrote in Our Hands Are Stained with Blood (i.e., the hands of the church are stained with the blood of the Jews it persecuted/killed): Why does Satan so passionately despise the Jews? For one thing, it is a reflection of his hatred for God. The Jews are God’s chosen people! By hurting them he seeks to hurt the Lord and take revenge for his own sentence of death. His effort to annihilate the Jews is also an attempt to discredit the Lord, since He has sworn in His Word that they will never be destroyed. If Israel ceases to exist as a distinct people, then God did not, or could not, keep His promise. That would mean that He was either powerless or that He lied! But there is another reason the devil despises the Jews: The salvation of Israel means the return of Jesus, the resurrection of the righteous, the revival of the Church and the restoration of the earth. (Romans 11:15) The fulfillment of the Jews’ destiny will seal the devil’s doom. Yes, “the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet” (Rom. 16:20) . . . and he is beginning to squirm! The time to favor Israel is upon us and Satan is quaking with fear. The countdown has begun. Understanding, then, that anti-Semitism is ultimately a spiritual phenomenon rather than a cultural, ethnic or even religious phenomenon, we can also understand that anti-Semitism has to do with God and His purposes rather than with the Jewish people themselves. That is to say, it is not because the Jews are better or worse than anyone else; it is because God chose the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to bring redemption to the world, the Messiah Himself being a Jew. In that light, it will be a bad day for anti-Semites when they realize that the all-powerful King coming in flaming fire is a glorified Jew.” http://www.voiceofrevolution.com/2009/02/11/why-have-jewish-people-been-so-hated-and-persecuted-through-the-centuries/]
The following is a brief summary of anti-Semitism from which I have copied some examples. You can read the entire list at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_antisemitism#Antiquity
325 A.D. – First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea. The Christian Church separates the calculation of the date of Easter from the Jewish Passover: “It was … declared improper to follow the custom of the Jews in the celebration of this holy festival, because, their hands having been stained with crime, the minds of these wretched men are necessarily blinded…. Let us, then, have nothing in common with the Jews, who are our adversaries. … avoiding all contact with that evil way. … who, after having compassed the death of the Lord, being out of their minds, are guided not by sound reason, but by an unrestrained passion, wherever their innate madness carries them. … a people so utterly depraved. … Therefore, this irregularity must be corrected, in order that we may no more have any thing in common with those parricides and the murderers of our Lord. … no single point in common with the perjury of the Jews.”
418 – The first record of Jews being forced to convert or face expulsion. Severus, the Bishop of Minorca, claimed to have forced 540 Jews to accept Christianity upon conquering the island. Synagogue in Magona, now Port Mahon capital of Minorca, burnt.
529–559 – Byzantine Emperor Justinian the Great publishes Corpus Juris Civilis. New laws restrict citizenship to Christians. These regulations determined the status of Jews throughout the Empire for hundreds of years: Jewish civil rights restricted: “they shall enjoy no honors”. The principle of Servitus Judaeorum (Servitude of the Jews) is established: the Jews cannot testify against Christians. The emperor becomes an arbiter in internal Jewish matters. The use of the Hebrew language in worship is forbidden. Shema Yisrael (“Hear, O Israel, the Lord is one”), sometimes considered the most important prayer in Judaism, is banned as a denial of the Trinity. Some Jewish communities are converted by force, their synagogues turned into churches.
629 March 21 – Byzantine Emperor Heraclius with his army marches into Jerusalem. Jewish inhabitants support him after his promise of amnesty. Upon his entry into Jerusalem the local priests convince him that killing Jews is a good deed. Hundreds of Jews are massacred, thousands flee to Egypt.
1096 – The First Crusade. Three hosts of crusaders pass through several Central European cities. The third, unofficial host, led by Count Emicho, decides to attack the Jewish communities, most notably in the Rhineland, under the slogan: “Why fight Christ’s enemies abroad when they are living among us?” Emicho’s host attacks the synagogue at Speyer and kills all the defenders. 800 are killed in Worms. Another 1,200 Jews commit suicide in Mainz to escape his attempt to forcibly convert them; see German Crusade, 1096. Attempts by the local bishops remained fruitless. All in all, 5,000 Jews were murdered.
1236 – Crusaders attack Jewish communities of Anjou and Poitou and attempt to baptize all the Jews. Those who resisted (est. 3,000) were slaughtered.
1348 – European Jews are blamed for the plague in the Black Death persecutions. Charge laid to the Jews that they poisoned the wells. Massacres spread throughout Spain, France, Germany and Austria. More than 200 Jewish communities destroyed by violence. Many communities have been expelled and settle down in Poland. Strasbourg massacre.
1492 March 31 – Ferdinand II and Isabella issue General Edict on the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain: approx. 200,000. Some return to the Land of Israel. As many localities and entire countries expel their Jewish citizens (after robbing them), and others deny them entrance, the legend of the Wandering Jew, a condemned harbinger of calamity, gains popularity.
1543 – In his pamphlet On the Jews and Their Lies Martin Luther advocates an eight-point plan to get rid of the Jews as a distinct group either by religious conversion or by expulsion:
“…set fire to their synagogues or schools…”
“…their houses also be razed and destroyed…”
“…their prayer books and Talmudic writings… be taken from them…”
“…their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb…”
“…safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews…”
“…usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them…” and “Such money should now be used in … the following [way]… Whenever a Jew is sincerely converted, he should be handed [certain amount]…”
“…young, strong Jews and Jewesses [should]… earn their bread in the sweat of their brow…”
“If we wish to wash our hands of the Jews’ blasphemy and not share in their guilt, we have to part company with them. They must be driven from our country” and “we must drive them out like mad dogs.” Luther “got the Jews expelled from Saxony in 1537, and in the 1540s he drove them from many German towns; he tried unsuccessfully to get the elector to expel them from Brandenburg in 1543. His followers continued to agitate against the Jews there: they sacked the Berlin synagogue in 1572 and the following year finally got their way, the Jews being banned from the entire country.”[19] (See also Martin Luther and the Jews)
1615 – King Louis XIII of France decrees that all Jews must leave the country within one month on pain of death.
1727 – Edict of Catherine I of Russia: “The Jews… who are found in Ukraine and in other Russian provinces are to be expelled at once beyond the frontiers of Russia.”
1881–1884 – Pogroms sweep southern Russia, propelling mass Jewish emigration – from the Pale of Settlement: about 2 million Russian Jews emigrated in period 1880–1924, many of them to the United States (until the National Origins Quota of 1924 and Immigration Act of 1924 largely halted immigration to the U.S. from Eastern Europe and Russia). The Russian word “pogrom” becomes international.
1933–1941 – Persecution of Jews in Germany rises until they are stripped of their rights not only as citizens, but also as human beings. During this time anti-Semitism reached its all-time high. *Law against Overcrowding of German Schools and Universities. *Law for the Reestablishment of the Professional Civil Service (ban on professions). *The Reich Flight Tax is used to expropriate funds from Jewish emigrees.
1939–1945 – The Holocaust. About 6 million Jews, including about 1 million children, systematically killed by Nazi Germany and other Axis powers.
2012 – Ahmadinejad was actually quoting the Ayatollah Khomeini when he said the “regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time” — also translated as “wiped off the map” -http://www.theblaze.com/news/2012/07/01/wipe-them-off-the-face-of-the-earth-iran-issues-new-threat-to-israel
New York, NY, November 2, 2017 – New data released today by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) show that the number of anti-Semitic incidents remain significantly higher in 2017 compared to 2016. In addition to the significant bump in the first quarter of this year, there was also a distinct increase after the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va., in August.ADL, in its latest Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents, reports that from Jan. 1 to Sept. 30 there were 1,299 anti-Semitic incidents across the United States, including physical assaults, vandalism, and attacks on Jewish institutions. That total represents a 67 percent increase over the same period in 2016 and already exceeds the 1,266 incidents reported all of last year. Of the incidents reported, there has been a disturbingly high number of anti-Semitic bullying and vandalism incidents in K-12 schools and college campuses across the U.S.
The end of anti-Semitism: “Behold, a day is coming for the LORD when the spoil taken from you will be divided among you. 2 For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city will be captured, the houses plundered, the women ravished and half of the city exiled, but the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city. 3 Then the LORD will go forth and fight against those nations, as when He fights on a day of battle.” (See Zechariah 14:1-3, 12:9) Zechariah 14 covers the battle of Armageddon, the second coming of Christ, and the establishment of the Millennial Kingdom. This is when anti-Semitism will end forever and the Jewish people and the nation of Israel will go from being a despised and persecuted people and nation to become the chief among all nations: Isaiah 2:2 “Now it will come about that in the last days the mountain of the house of the LORD (Jerusalem) will be established as the chief of the mountains, And will be raised above the hills; And all the nations will stream to it.” Zechariah 8:22-23: “So many peoples and mighty nations will come to seek the LORD of hosts in Jerusalem and to entreat the favor of the LORD.’ 23 Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘In those days ten (Gentile) men from all the nations will grasp the garment of a Jew, saying, “Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.”
“And so all Israel will be saved.” (Romans 11:26) For an in-depth teaching on Romans 9-11 about God’s end time plan for the nation of Israel read or listen to John MacArthur’s two teachings at https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/1318 and https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/1319 . For a less in-depth but overall understanding of Romans 9-11 see my teaching on this at http://www.lensykes.com/archives/1541
Baruch haba b’Shem Adonai – Blessed is He (Jesus Christ) Who comes in the Name of the Lord, Len and Kristen