Chapter 13

                                        Do You Know What Hurts Me?

The purpose of the next three chapters is to expose Satan's strategies and lies, many of which have become imbedded in the doctrines and traditions of corporate Christianity.  It is important to note that these chapters are not intended as an indictment against any individual, race, or religious group.

Throughout the centuries, there has always been a righteous remnant of God's people.  These believers have prayed for Israel and blessed the Jewish people with the love of their Messiah.  Through their loving obedience, many lost sheep of the house of Israel have been drawn into the kingdom of their long-awaited Messiah.  YAHveh will certainly be faithful to this remnant and will bestow on them His blessings as promised in Genesis 12:3.

To truly love YAHveh, we must be willing to open our hearts to know what hurts Him.  There is a story of a Hasidic rabbi whose student comes to him saying, "Master, I love you."

"Do you know what hurts me?" the rabbi asks tenderly.

The student is taken aback.  "What do you mean, do I know what hurts you?"

"Unless you know what hurts and grieves me," responds the rabbi, "you can't possibly love me."

For almost two thousand years, Messiah's blood has been trampled as His brethren, the Jews, have been persecuted, tortured, driven out of countries, and killed in the name of Jesus Christ.  Many Christians have believed the lie that the Jews were Christ-killers.  Consequently, much of Israel's history has been written in the blood of YAHshua's slaughtered brethren.

With YAHveh's truth as our plumb line, let's examine the foundation and walls of the religious system men have built throughout Christian history.  We begin with a brief overview of several famous church fathers—men who are respected as some of the great pillars of the church.  It is a grievous paradox that these same men are infamous to the Jewish people.

Keeping in mind that YAHshua died to make Jewish and Gentile believers into one new man, how is it possible that the same "church fathers" are famous and beloved to Christians, yet dreaded and infamous to Jews?  Remember that while Messiah died to tear down the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile, Satan lives to resurrect it.

May the following accounts serve as the flint knife of circumcision to cut away any ignorance, pride, hostility, and indifference you may have toward the Jews.  And may the pain of circumcision sensitize your heart to our Heavenly Father's deep sorrow over the tragic treatment of His chosen people throughout church history.  Then when you say that you love Him and He asks, "Do you know what hurts Me?" you will truly know.

                                              The Darkness of Men's Doctrines

Beginning with Origen (a.d. 185‑254), an erroneous foundation of biblical interpretation was laid through an allegorical view of Old Covenant prophecy.^[1]  According to Origen's interpretation, Israel was rejected by God and His covenant with them nullified because of their rejection of Messiah.  This venomous lie bred another lie that is still advanced today—the church is now "true Israel" and has replaced the Jewish nation in God's sight.  According to this deceptive theology, all of Israel's promises, prophetic blessings, and covenants now belong solely to the church.

The consequences of this doctrine were subtle at first.  The most serious consequence was that the protections provided by the clear Scriptural warnings of God against those who would harm His Covenant people were snatched away.  A feeling of contempt naturally followed, since, in the eyes of those who held this view, the Jews were clinging to a hope that now belonged only to the Church. . . . The Church leaders saw no justification for the Jews to remain a distinct people, since in their view, their hopes belonged exclusively to the church forever.

. . . when the church began to see itself as God's true Israel, the inheritor of the covenant promises made to Israel, then in the eyes of the Church, the Israelites ceased to have any legitimate purpose or right to exist as a people.^[2]

Mr. Lindsay continues:

These prophetic views were a complete departure from the original teachings of the Apostolic Fathers of the Church, whose period extended from a.d. 33 to shortly after a.d. 100. . . .

. . . The early Gentile believers recognized the Jews as YAHveh's chosen people and the sovereign recipients of His many prophesied promised blessings.

These views also promoted a compassion for the Jews because the Christians saw them as a demonstration of God's faithfulness to His Word.  And most important, the early believers held that God would judge anyone who unjustly harmed a Jew in accordance with His promise of protection to him in the Abrahamic Covenant.  "I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse." (Genesis 12:3 — emphasis in source)^[3]

                                        Infamous Words of the Famous Fathers

The apostle Paul's warnings to the Gentiles were disregarded by those who promoted these new, anti‑Israel interpretations of Scripture.  The Serpent's egg had indeed hatched into a new breed of so-called doctrine.

Chrysostom was praised as one of the most dynamic preachers of truth and divine love; even his name means "golden‑mouthed."  Because of his eloquent preaching, he was revered as one of the notable church fathers.  Unfortunately and paradoxically, his exemplary compassion and sensitivity were not demonstrated in his attitudes towards the Jews.  Chrysostom wrote:

The synagogue is worse than a brothel . . . it is the den of scoundrels and the repair of wild beasts . . . the temple of demons devoted to idolatrous cults . . . the refuge of brigands and debauches, and the cavern of devils.  [It is] a criminal assembly of Jews . . . a place of meeting for the assassins of Christ . . . a house worse than a drinking shop . . . a den of thieves; a house of ill fame, a dwelling of iniquity, the refuge of devils, gulf and abyss of perdition.

As for the Jewish people themselves Chrysostom commented, "I would say the same things about their souls."  And so, "As for me, I hate the synagogue . . . I hate the Jews for the same reason."^[4]

Thus billows the voice of a respected church father and pillar of historical Christianity who preached, "It is incumbent on all Christians to hate the Jews."^[5]  Dr. Michael L. Brown comments:

What happened to Christian love?  Paul had wished that he could be cursed in place of his Jewish people.  Chrysostom instead cursed them!  How much destruction was subsequently ignited by these tragic sermons of malice?  The Catholic historian Malcolm Hay is surely right when he says, "For many centuries the Jews listened to the echo of those three words of St. John Chrysostom, the Golden‑Mouthed:  'God hates you.'"  And thus, "the popular Christian doctrine has always been that anyone, whether pagan or Christian, who has at any time persecuted, tortured or massacred Jews has acted as an instrument of Divine wrath."^[6]

St. Jerome attempted to prove that the Jews are incapable of understanding the Scriptures and that they should be assigned a place with the base and illiterate.  It is nonsensical that the very ones through whom the Scriptures were written should be considered incapable of comprehending them.  St. Jerome's teachings were aimed at the severe persecution of the Jews, forcing them to confess the faith of Christianity.

St. Augustine (a.d. 354‑425) built on Origen's allegorical method of interpretation.  Through Augustine's teaching came a strong theology that would become part of the man‑made structure of organized Christianity over the next thousand years.  This teaching strengthened the erroneous doctrine that the Christian church was now the inheritor of Israel's promises.  Augustine accused the Jew of being the image of Judas Iscariot, who was forever guilty and spiritually ignorant.

These distorted views of Scripture were completely opposed to the original teachings of the Hebrew fathers of the faith (see Eph 2-3 and Ro 9-11).  The ancient Serpent's strategy had succeeded in breeding doctrinal misinterpretations that would perpetuate his venomous lies in the centuries to come.

Raul Hillberg, a noted scholar of the Holocaust, summarizes the essence of Satan's diabolical strategy to infect the church with anti-Semitism as follows:

Since the fourth century after Christ there have been three anti‑Jewish policies:  (forced) conversion, expulsion, annihilation.  The second appeared as an alternative to the first, and the third emerged as an alternative to the second. . . . The missionaries of Christianity had said in effect:  You have no right to live among us.  The Nazis at last decreed:  You have no right to live.

The process began with the attempt to drive the Jews into Christianity.  The development was continued in order to force the victims into exile.  It was finished when the Jews were driven to their deaths.  The German Nazis, then, did not discard the past; they built upon it.  They did not begin a development; they completed it.^[7]

David cried out in his Psalm:

Do you rulers indeed speak justly?  Do you judge uprightly among men?  No, in your heart you devise injustice, and your hands mete out violence on the earth.  Even from birth the wicked go astray . . . they are wayward and speak lies.  Their venom is like the venom of a snake . . . (Ps 58:1‑4 niv — emphasis added)

                                                         Anti‑Jewish Atrocities

In 313 c.e. the emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and made the Christian faith the official religion of the Roman Empire.  Constantine's conversion was a glorious turning point for the persecuted Christians.  However, his policies proved destructive to the Jewish people and to the Hebrew foundations of the Christian faith.

Constantine harbored Satan's ancient hostility toward Israel and labeled the Jews a wicked, villainous, and perverse sect.

. . . by the early fifth century, the Church believed that it was the sole possessor of Israel's covenant promises, including the ownership of the promised land.  Acting from this false premise, the Church began to use its new political power to create and enforce anti‑Jewish legislation—a practice that became usual in the Middle Ages.  In many cases throughout the Middle Ages, the institutional Church either forced Jews to convert by political oppression and terror, or put them to the sword.

Once again, it was the false prophetic premises of the Church that were the basis of the Church's anti‑Jewish attitudes and actions.  The Church began to act in a way that was in diametric contradiction to the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ.

. . . Persecution followed the Jews wherever they went in the centuries that followed Emperor Constantine. . . . Only two years after Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the empire, he initiated a series of repressive edicts, . . . Prejudice against the Jews was guaranteed.^[8]

The Serpent had succeeded in injecting his ancient venom into the bloodstream of Christianity.  In the delirium caused by the cunning Serpent's bite, men laid faulty foundations and gave rise to a form of religion contrary to YAHveh's original building program.  As new Christian doctrines and attitudes emerged, these undermined YAHshua's command for Gentile believers to love and bless His Jewish brethren.

Historian Ausubel reports another important milestone along the infamous road of anti‑Semitism:  "Two centuries later [i.e., after Constantine's reign], the Emperor Justinian (a.d. 527‑565) issued his celebrated code which laid the legal groundwork for anti‑Semitism as a PERMANENT CHRISTIAN STATE POLICY.  One clause provided:  "They (the Jews) shall enjoy no honors.  Their status shall reflect the baseness which in their souls they have elected and desired" (emphases in source).^[9]

At times, the Jews were defamed and forced to wear special clothing that depicted humiliation.  In the centuries following Constantine and Augustine, they were alienated from society, forced to live in ghettos, and massacred in diverse places.

Anti‑Jewish atrocities reached a pinnacle with the Crusades of 1096 c.e.  During the eleventh through the thirteenth centuries, European Christians sent military expeditions to the land of Israel.  Determined to retrieve the Holy Land from its Jewish and Muslim inhabitants, these deceived Crusaders targeted the Jews and Muslims as the "enemies of Christianity."

According to the historical account of  Solomon bar Samson regarding the Crusades, he states:  "All the Gentiles were gathered together against the Jews in the courtyard to blot out their name, and the strength of our people weakened when they saw the wicked Edomites overpowering them [the Edomites were the traditional foes of the Jews; here, Christians are meant]." (emphasis in source)^[10]

The centuries of misguided sermons about the whole Jewish race being exclusively guilty of the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus, the long history of an official church policy of humiliating and persecuting them, and the clergy‑cultivated image of the Jews as being obstinate impostors with no future as a people in God's plan, all began to bear their murderous fruit among the lower class of the Crusaders.

Soon there were cries for the blood of the "Christ‑killer" before going to Palestine to deal with the Muslims.  There is nothing more dangerous or uncontrollable than a mob which has been deluded into thinking it is doing a religious deed by eliminating an enemy of God. . . .

When the Crusaders, led by Godfrey, captured Jerusalem on July 15, 1099, they first entered the city through the Jewish quarter.  A terrible slaughter took place.  The surviving Jews were sold as slaves.  The Jewish community of Jerusalem was obliterated.  In all, tens of thousands of Jews were massacred in the name of Christianity as a consequence of the first Crusade.^[11]

With banners flying in the name of Jesus Christ and giant crucifixes held high, the serpent's envoys paraded as Christians to accomplish Satan's diabolical schemes.  The Crusaders stormed Jerusalem, rounded up the Jews in their great synagogue, locked the doors, and set it ablaze.  As the screams of Messiah's brethren pierced YAHveh's heart, the deceived army marched proudly and mercilessly around this Jewish bonfire,^[12] waving their Christian banners and singing "Christ We Adore Thee."

The passionate mission of the Crusaders had been ignited through the erroneous doctrine of replacement theology.  These Christians believed that Jerusalem no longer belonged to the Jews.  The church had replaced Israel, and Jerusalem was to become a Christian city.  A leader of the Crusade, Raymond Aguilers, led the army over a carpet of mutilated bodies in the height of satanic victory.  As they marched, they sang Psalm 118:24:  "This is the day which the Lord has made; Let us rejoice and be glad in it."

Indeed the ancient Serpent had won himself quite a victory!  The dividing wall of hostility between Jew and Gentile, which had been destroyed through the blood of the Messiah, was now resurrected and stained with the blood of His brethren, the Jews.

                                                                The Dark Ages

YAHshua, the glory of Israel, was to be the "light of revelation to the Gentiles" (Lk 2:32).   Illumined by this light, the Gentiles now would have eyes to see, ears to hear, and a spirit to know, understand, and worship the God and Messiah of Israel.  The Gentiles were redeemed and commissioned to labor with YAHshua in His harvest field, to go in His divine order and bring the Gospel to the Jews first (Ro 1:16).

But now the bright light of Messiah was overshadowed by Satan's darkness.  YAHshua's love and truth were overpowered by the Enemy's hatred and lies.  The anti‑Semitic Crusades ushered in a period of history called the Dark Ages.  Simply stated, the degree to which the Church has walked in the light and love of YAHshua toward the Jews is the same degree to which it has had the true light of revelation shining in and through it.

During the Dark Ages, a common Christian slogan caught on among the people like a catchy tune:  "Kill a Jew and save your soul."  To the ancient Serpent, this morbid melody echoed like a victory cry from the mouths of thousands of misguided Christians.

If only the light of revelation had not been overshadowed by the darkness of men's doctrines.  Many of these unsuspecting Christians would never have become the agents of anti‑Semitism.  YAHveh's heart cries out, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge"  (Hos 4:6).

Hear the words of Isaiah:  "To the law and to the testimony!  [including the biblical mandate to bless the Jews]  If they do not speak according to this word [YAHveh's full counsel], . . . they have no light of dawn" (Isa 8:20 niv).

The "bright morning star" (Rev 22:16) has been eclipsed by trumped up doctrines, becoming as dim moonlight.  Many Christians have worked diligently in the harvest field as if working by the light of the moon.  Because of the darkness, many good crops were inadvertently trampled and never harvested.  Many seeds were not planted correctly, nor was the soil prepared properly simply because there was no bright light of truth by which to work.  Many seedlings died before maturity because the Son's (sun's) full counsel and radiance was not there to feed them with the proper nutrients.  What a blighted harvest field with so much dry, shriveled fruit!  What a grief to the Creator and a repulsion to the multitudes who see it.

                                                    The Iniquitous Inquisitions

The infamous Inquisitions followed the cruel Crusades.  Deep darkness was upon the church and the world.  Most vestiges of love and mercy toward Messiah's brethren had been buried with the thousands of Jews who were murdered as "Christ-killers."

The Inquisitions lasted several hundred years and helped perpetuate Satan's strategy against the Jews.  From the reign of Constantine to the Middle Ages, every religious tradition that did not line up with the teachings of "the Church" was considered heresy.  The Jewish people, in their tenacity to maintain their biblical Hebrew roots, were considered a threat to this tainted form of Christianity.

The European Inquisitions were aimed in part at the eradication of all that was Jewish and considered heresy.  During these dark years, many Jews were threatened and massacred.  If YAHshua, the Jew of all Jews, had lived during that time, the church leaders would have considered His uncompromised Hebraic nature a threat to their form of Christianity.

During the long dark years of the Middle Ages, Jews were frequently given the option of baptism or expulsion, baptism or torture, baptism or death.  Every type of degrading law was passed against them:  They were forbidden to work good jobs; after all, they were an accursed people, assassins of Christ, so how could they be allowed to prosper?  They were forced to listen to humiliating public sermons aimed at their conversion—wasn't this the holy obligation of the Church?  Their children were kidnapped and baptized as "Christians," thus saving them from the fires of hell.  They were rounded up and beaten as a highlight of Easter celebrations, since they deserved it as murderers of the Lord."^[13]

The following is an excerpt from a typical profession of faith that a Jewish baptismal candidate was forced to confess:

I do here and now renounce every rite and observance of the Jewish religion, detesting all its most solemn ceremonies . . . In the future I will practice no rite or celebration connected with it, . . . promising neither to seek it out or perform it. . . . I promise that I will never return to the vomit of Jewish superstition.  Never again will I fulfill any of the offices of Jewish ceremonies to which I was addicted, nor ever more hold them dear.  [I will] shun all intercourse with other Jews and have the circle of my friends only among other Christians.

[We will not] associate with the accursed Jews who remain unbaptized. . . .  We will not practice carnal circumcision, or celebrate the Passover, the Sabbath or the other feast days connected with the Jewish religion. . . .

I renounce the whole worship of the Hebrews, . . . And I absolutely renounce every custom and institution of the Jewish laws . . . in one word, I renounce absolutely everything Jewish. . . .

If I wander from the straight path in any way and defile the holy Faith, and try to observe any rites of the Jewish sect, or if I shall delude you in any way in the swearing of this oath . . . then may all the curses of the law fall upon me. . . . May there fall upon me and upon my house and all my children all the plagues which smote Egypt, and to the horror of others may I suffer in addition the fate of Dathan and Abiram, so that the earth shall swallow me alive, and after I am deprived of this life I shall be handed over to the eternal fire, in the company of the Devil and his Angels, sharing with the dwellers in Sodom and with Judas the punishment of burning; and when I arrive before the tribunal of the fearful and glorious Judge, our Lord Jesus Christ, may I be numbered in that company to whom the glorious and terrible Judge with threatening mien will say, "Depart from Me, evil‑doers, into the eternal fire that is prepared for the Devil and his Angels."^[14]

In the words of Dr. Brown, "Let us hang our heads in shame.  The 'Church' has blood on her hands."^[15]

In Spain during the fourteenth century, Jews were forced to convert to Christianity or be massacred and have their bodies dismembered.  Seventy communities were destroyed.  In Vienna during the fifteenth century, the possessions of Jews were confiscated and their children forcibly converted.  Several hundred were burned at the stake.

During the Middle Ages, the Jewish people were forced to wear distinctive clothing to mark them as separate and repulsive to the Gentile communities.

Early in the 16th Century, whole cities of Jews were segregated from the general population into what were called ghettos. . . . The worst part of the city was sectioned off, and a high wall was built around it. . . . They were guarded by Christians whose salaries the Jews were compelled to pay.  Ghettos were closed during all Christian festivals such as Easter and Christmas.  Those living in the area were required to listen to long sermons aimed at their conversion.^[16]

                                                             Poison in a Pillar

Martin Luther is considered the great pillar of Protestantism—a man whom many in Christendom respect.  What did Martin Luther have to say about the Jews?  Early in his life, he rallied to their cause.  In 1523 he wrote a pamphlet entitled "Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew" in hopes of winning the Jews to Christianity.  But toward the end of his life, Luther became frustrated with the Jews because they did not respond to his presentation of the Gospel.

Martin Luther, even with his prominent faith and noteworthy zeal, did not understand the Jews, nor did he understand YAHveh's heart and purpose for His chosen people.  He did not fully comprehend the sovereignty of the Abrahamic covenant (Ge 12:3) or the mandate for Gentiles to extend love and mercy to the Jews (Ro 11).  Moreover, he presented a Savior stripped of His Jewish identity and distorted by Gentile characteristics.  A Gentile portrayal of their long-awaited Messiah never did and never will appeal to the masses of Jews.  The Jews await a Jewish Messiah.

Like many others, Martin Luther was simply a by‑product of a religious system that had been permeated by the Serpent's ancient venom.  This poison was circulated in his spiritual veins until it flared as a raging infection toward the end of his life.

Jacob R. Marcus, a notable Jewish historian expounds on Luther.  "His growing bitterness and sense of disillusionment finally vented itself in 1543 in a series of German anti-Jewish writings of which Concerning the Jews and Their Lies is a notorious example.  There are no more bitterly anti-Jewish statements in all Christian literature than those who may be found in these writings of the disappointed rebel."^[17]

Martin Luther's words have often been used as proof to the Jews that the beloved Savior of the Gentiles could not possibly be their friend much less their long-awaited Messiah.

What then shall we Christians do with this damned, rejected race of Jews?  Since they live among us and we know about their lying and blasphemy and cursing, we cannot tolerate them if we do not wish to share in their lies, curses, and blasphemy. . . . We must prayerfully and reverentially practice a merciful severity. . . . Let me give you my honest advice:

First, to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them.  This is to be done in honor of our LORD and of Christendom. . . .

Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed . . .

Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them.

Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb . . .

Fifth, I advise that safe‑conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews. . . . Let them stay at home . . .

Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them, and put aside for safe keeping . . .

Seventh, I recommend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hand of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow."^[18]

Noted author, Erwin Lutzer gives this personal account as he led a tour group in Wittenberg:

When we walk across the Town Square, we come to the Town Church where Luther preached the gospel to the common people of Wittenberg.  But if you walk around to the back of the church and look up at the point where the roof and wall meet, you will see the sandstone relief of a pig, a sculpture perhaps three feet long and eighteen inches high.