Chapter 14

                                   Anti‑Semitism Fanned into Flames

Adolph Hitler, Satan's greatest hit man, was inspired by Martin Luther's anti‑Semitic writings.

Germany had a long history of "Christian" anti‑Semitism, not only from within the Roman Catholic Church, but even from within the Protestant Church.  It was Martin Luther, who in his latter years turned upon the Jews with a religious fury, thus paving the way for Adolph Hitler to consummate the Reformer's great desire for the elimination of the Jewish people.  Is it any wonder that Hitler cited Martin Luther in Mein Kampf as one of the great heroes of the German people."^[1]

Christianity did not create the Holocaust; indeed Nazism was anti‑Christian, but it made it possible.  Without Christian anti‑Semitism, the Holocaust would have been inconceivable. . . . Hitler and the Nazis found in medieval Catholic anti‑Jewish legislation a model for their own, and they read and reprinted Martin Luther's virulently anti‑Semitic writings.  It is instructive that the Holocaust was unleashed by the only major country in Europe having approximately equal numbers of Catholics and Protestants.  BOTH TRADITIONS WERE SATURATED WITH JEW‑HATRED.^[2]

At the Nuremberg trials, the infamous Nazi war criminal Julius Streicher quoted Luther's anti‑Semitic writings in defending the Nazi atrocities.  Indeed, it was Luther's work that had provided Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany with Christian justification for their murderous "final solution" for the Jews.  Hitler wrote, "Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the Almighty Creator:  by defending myself against the JEW, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."^[3]  Even today, Martin Luther's anti‑Semitic tracts are respected by neo‑Nazis.

Most Jewish people have lost one or more relatives to anti‑Semitism, which was fanned into flames by the writings of Martin Luther.  Engraved on the memory of many holocaust survivors are the words which were written across the archway of certain death camps:  "We kill you because you killed Jesus."^[4]

Dr. Erwin Lutzer comments, "As Gentiles, we forget that Christ is thought of as an enemy of the Jews.  A Jewish women told some of us at a Bible study that when she was searching for God, she feared studying the New Testament in case it turned out to be true.  She often prayed, 'O God, turn out to be anybody but Jesus!'"^[5]

                                                            Harbored Hostility

The Nazis were entertained by the suffering and torment of their Jewish victims.  Holocaust historian Elie Wiesel is quoted by Michael Brown:

"Imagine:  the chief rabbi of the town forced by German officers to clean the pavement, to sweep it with his beard.  And all around, proud soldiers, warriors puffed up with their victories, slapped their thighs in merriment.  Imagine:  a distinguished officer, a man of good family, orders Jewish children to run, like rabbits, and then he takes out his revolver and begins shooting at the terrified living targets, scattering them, mowing them down.  Imagine:  no, let us not imagine anymore.  In those days, the executioners had more imagination than their victims."

Dr. Brown continues:

These were all driven, all impelled, all given over to the humiliation, degradation and extermination of the Jews.  Only yesterday they were neighbors and friends!

When the Nazis murdered all the patients of the Lodz ghetto hospitals they threw newborn babies out of the upper story hospital windows.  Precious Jewish infants were splattered on the pavement!  But for one teenaged SS soldier this was not enough.  He asked permission—and was granted permission—to catch the falling babes on his bayonet.  Is there no limit to hell's depravity?^[6]

Many of these Nazis were considered good family men; many of them were supposed to be God-fearing Catholics and Protestants.  With one hand they would clothe, feed, and nurture their families.  With the other, they would viciously strip, starve, torture, and kill Jewish families.

These Nazi "shepherds" would herd the Jews into gas chambers.  In cold blood, they would hear the tormented screams of Messiah's dying brethren.  Many would change their blood-stained clothes to flock "as wolves in sheep's clothing" into their churches.  Safe within their Christian cathedrals, they would piously sing choruses such as "Silent Night, Holy Night" and "Christ We Adore Thee."

Dr. Lutzer relates a chilling account of his personal observation in a former German army war ministry building, where ". . . the pictures that caught my attention were those of Protestant pastors and Catholic priests giving the Nazi salute.  I was even more surprised at the pictures of swastika banners that adorned the Christian churches—swastika banners with the cross of Christ in the center!"^[7]

Lutzer continues with another alarming story about a German man who had lived in Nazi Germany during the Nazi Holocaust:

I considered myself a Christian.  We heard stories of what was happening to the Jews, but we tried to distance ourselves from it, because, what could anyone do to stop it?

A railroad track ran behind our small church and each Sunday morning we could hear the whistle in the distance and then the wheels coming over the tracks.  We became disturbed when we heard the cries coming from the train as it passed by.  We realized that it was carrying Jews like cattle in the cars!

Week after week the whistle would blow.  We dreaded to hear the sound of those wheels because we knew that we would hear the cries of the Jews en route to a death camp.  Their screams tormented us.

We knew the time the train was coming and when we heard the whistle blow we began singing hymns.  By the time the train came past our church we were singing at the top of our voices.  If we heard the screams, we sang more loudly and soon we heard them no more.

Years have passed and no one talks about it anymore.  But I still hear that train whistle in my sleep.  God forgive me, forgive all of us who call ourselves Christians yet did nothing to intervene.^[8]

The ancient Serpent, in all his diabolical cunning, had succeeded in turning Christianity upside down.  He had divided the one new man and cursed both the Jews and the Gentiles whom Messiah had died to bless.  Today is it any wonder that the majority of Jews in the world respond in horror and dread to the name Jesus Christ?  The name that is above all names to Christians has become a curse word to them, reeking with the stench of torment and death, and never to be spoken in Jewish homes.  Dr. Brown again:

Let me translate for you the words of an Israeli writer who expresses the heart of many of his people:

"Instead of bringing redemption to the Jews, the false Christian messiah has brought down on us base libels and expulsions, oppressive restrictions and burning of [our] holy books, devastations and destructions.  Christianity, which professes to infuse the sick world with love and compassion, has fixed a course directly opposed to this lofty rhetoric.  The voice of the blood of millions of our brothers cries out to us from the ground:  'No!  Christianity is not a religion of love but a religion of unfathomable hate!  All history, from ancient times to our own day, is one continuous proof of the total bankruptcy of this religion in all its segments.'"^[9]

Dr. Brown continues, quoting Professor Eugene Bares:

"We might be more inclined to give Christian claims some credence had we seen Christians through the ages behave as models of a redeemed humanity.  Looking through the window of history we have found them in as much need of saving as the rest of humankind.  If anything, their social failings are especially discrediting of their doctrine for they claim to be uniquely free of human sinfulness and freshly inspired by their faith to bring the world to a realm of love and peace. . . . Until sinfulness ceases and well‑being prevails, Jews know the Messiah has not come."

"The fact that a leading Jewish thinker like Elixir Berkovits could speak of "the moral bankruptcy of Christian civilization and the spiritual bankruptcy of Christian religion" should cut us to the heart."^[10]

"After nineteen centuries of Christianity, the extermination of six million Jews, among them one‑and‑a‑half million children, carried out in cold blood in the very heart of Christian Europe, encouraged by the criminal silence of virtually all Christendom  including that of an infallible Holy Father in Rome, was the natural culmination of this bankruptcy.  A straight line leads from the first act of oppression against the Jews and Judaism in the fourth century to the holocaust in the twentieth."^[11]

The Holy One of Israel has not changed.  The eternal words He spoke against the enemies of Israel are as appropriate today as they were in the days of Edom.  In Scripture, Edom is symbolic of any individual or nation that harbors Satan's enmity toward God's chosen people.  YAHveh prophesied against Edom and all of Israel's enemies.

"Because you have had everlasting enmity [an ancient hostility] and have delivered the sons of Israel to the power of the sword at the time of their calamity, at the time of the punishment of the end, therefore, as I live," declares the Lord YAHveh, "I will give you over to bloodshed, and bloodshed will pursue you; . . ."  (Eze 35:5-6)

Thus says the Lord YAHveh concerning Edom . . . "The arrogance of your heart [toward the Jewish people] has deceived you . . . "Though you build high like the eagle . . . I will bring you down . . . "  (Ob 1:1, 3-4)

"Will I not on that day," declares YAHveh, "Destroy wise men from Edom . . . "Because of violence to your brother Jacob, You will be covered with shame, And you will be cut off forever.  "On the day that you stood aloof . . . "Do not gloat over your brother’s day, The day of his misfortune."  (Ob 1:8, 10‑12)

Because the Serpent's eggs hatched within Christian theology, the church became an enemy of Israel, causing the brethren of YAHshua to be driven far from the truth and love of their Messiah.  The fullness of the Savior's glorious presence and His promised blessings have been blocked by Christianity's sins of omission and commission with regard to the Jews.  The hands of corporate Christendom are stained with blood.  The prophet Isaiah cries out:

". . . your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.  For your hands are stained with blood, your fingers with guilt.  Your lips have spoken lies . . . No one calls for justice . . . They hatch the eggs of vipers . . . Whoever eats their eggs will die . . . "  (Isa 59:2‑5 niv — emphasis added)

Alas, sinful nation, People weighed down with iniquity, Offspring of evildoers, Sons who act corruptly!  They have abandoned YAHveh, They have despised the Holy One of Israel, They have turned away from Him [and His mandate to bless the Jews].  Where will you be stricken again, As you continue in your rebellion?  The whole head is sick, And the whole heart is faint.  From the sole of the foot even to the head There is nothing sound in it . . . "I will hide My eyes from you, Yes, even though you multiply prayers, I will not listen.  Your hands are covered with blood.  "Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean . . . Cease to do evil, Learn to do good . . . "  (Isa 1:4‑6, 15‑17)

Those who call themselves children of God must stand in the gap and repent for the multitudes of Jews killed in the name of Jesus Christ and Christianity.  Messiah's words to the self‑righteous religious leaders of His day are applicable to us upon whom the end of the age has come.  YAHshua said, "This generation will be held responsible for the blood . . . Yes, I tell you, this generation will be held responsible for it all"  (Lk 11:50‑51 niv).

You and I did not sing Satan's tune, "Kill a Jew and save your soul."  We did not march around flaming synagogues singing "Christ We Adore Thee" as the screams of the Jewish people pierced heaven's gates and YAHveh's heart.  There were many, however, who stood aloof in shameful silence as the Jews were mercilessly slaughtered by the Nazis.

The Spirit of Truth asks us to examine our hearts.  The humble will willingly acknowledge to one degree or another that they have fallen prey to ignorance, indifference, spiritual pride, hostility, and even the rejection of Messiah's brethren.  The venom of anti‑Semitism must be thoroughly purged from individual hearts in order that we might be Holy to YAHveh.

King David was required to make restitution for the Gibeonite blood that King Saul had shed.  David was not guilty, nor was he responsible for Saul's sin.  However, the nation of Israel suffered a great famine "on account of Saul and his blood-stained house" (2Sa 21:1 niv — emphasis added).  In the purity of his heart, David understood that the stain of blood had to be repented for in order for the curse of famine to be reversed (see 2Sa 21:14).

Today YAHveh is raising up a "David generation" that will repent for the blood-stained house of Christendom.  These stains were brought about by a "Saul generation" who did not rightly discern YAHveh's will and love for Israel.  Instead of drawing Messiah's brethren in with cords of lovingkindness, some throughout Christian history have driven them away with whips of hate and violence.

Through prayer and repentance, the "David generation" will help reverse the biblical curse incurred by a form of religion that has not blessed Abraham's descendants.  The spiritual famine will end, and a banqueting table will be set for those who weep over the slain of Jacob (see Jer 9:1), and repent for the blood-stained house of historical Christianity.

                                           Do Not Stick Your Finger in His Eye

The prophet Zechariah proclaimed:  ". . . for he who touches you [Israel], touches the apple [pupil] of His eye.  For behold, I will wave My hand over them, so that they will be plunder . . . "  (Zec 2:8-9).

Serpent's don't have fingers, but men do.  YAHveh is posting His warning:  Do not stick your finger in My eye!  YAHveh is so identified with His people Israel that their pain is His pain.  According to Isaiah,  "In all their affliction He was afflicted"  (Isa 63:9).  If we say that we love Him, we too will grieve with Him in all His pain.

Concerning His Jewish brethren, Messiah emphatically said, "Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me"  (Mt 25:40 niv).  He explained that nations and peoples will one day be judged—separated as sheep from goats to receive eternal blessings or curses.  Their fate will ultimately be determined by their obedience to the Abrahamic covenant as recorded in Genesis 12:3.

Scripture reminds us that "YAHveh is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it?  Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?"  (Nu 23:19).

                                                         A Slippery, Dark Path

The Abrahamic covenant and the issue of the Jews will soon become a threshing instrument in God's hands.  YAHveh will use these to separate the humble, redeemed "wheat" from the arrogant, deceived "tares"  (see Isa 41:15-16 and Mic 4:13).  Those who are ambassadors of the Father of Truth will be as the wheat.  Those who are agents of the Father of Lies will be the tares.  Satan has succeeded in leading the whole world astray through deception (see Rev 12:9), but more shockingly, he has deceived many professing Christians by leading them down a slippery, dark path.

"For both prophet and priest are polluted; Even in My house [including the church] I have found their wickedness," declares YAHveh.  "Therefore their way will be like slippery paths to them, They will be driven away into the gloom and fall down in it; For I shall bring calamity upon them, The year of their punishment," declares YAHveh.  (Jer 23:11‑12)

Jews and Christians continue to sit in darkness, apart from the full truth, light, and love of Messiah.  By and large, the church has not reflected the bright light of the Son, YAHshua, but rather the dimness of man's doctrines and traditions.  Multitudes languish in sin and wither in bondage.  They are waiting for the truth to set them free.  Messiah's purpose will soon be completed.  The true redeemed body for which He died, including both Jews and Gentiles, must be reconciled into one new man.  It is time for Jews and Gentiles to unite against our common enemy, to form a mighty army under whose feet Satan and all of his anti‑Semitic venom will be crushed.

                                                     We Must Not Keep Silent

Today throughout the world, we see the ancient Serpent rearing his ugly head and spewing out his anti‑Semitism because he knows that his time is short.  We must take heed and learn a lesson from historic Christianity's attitude toward the Jews.  If many devout pillars of the faith fell prey to Satan's ancient venom, how much more could we?

A time is coming soon that is called "Jacob's trouble" (Jer 30:7 niv).  Daniel prophesied that it will be "a time of distress such as never occurred since there was a nation until that time"  (Da 12:1).

During this time of great tribulation, the Serpent's obsessive hatred for Israel will reach its culmination.  At this ominous juncture in history, all of the world's nations will unite together in the common bond of Jew‑hatred.  According to Scripture, two-thirds of the Jewish people are slated for destruction, and only a remnant will repent and "call on the name of YAHveh" and be "delivered"  (Joel 2:32).

"And it will come about in all the land," Declares YAHveh, "That two parts [of the Israelites] in it will be cut off and perish; But the third will be left in it. . . . They will call on My name, And I will answer them; I will say, 'They are My people,' And they will say, 'YAHveh is my God.'"  (Zec 13:8-9)

"Now it will come about in that day the remnant of Israel, . . . will truly rely on YAHveh, the Holy One of Israel.  A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God.  For though your people, O Israel, may be like the sand of the sea, Only a remnant within them will return; A destruction is determined, overflowing with righteousness."  (Isa 10:20-22)

With this in mind and in view of the resurgence of anti‑Semitism throughout the world, YAHveh's righteous remnant must obey His expressed will.  We must bring salvation in His biblical order: "to the Jews first"  (Ro 1:16).

The Devil is planning his final attack on Messiah's Jewish brethren.  The Holy One of Israel commands us not to keep silent in regard to His chosen people and nation.  He will sovereignly judge all who stand aloof and do not listen to His heart as expressed through His prophets.  We are to give Him no rest as we cry out from merciful hearts, "'O YAHveh, save Thy people, The remnant of Israel'"  (Jer 31:7).

Scripture teaches that when we know the right thing to do and don't do it, it is sin.  Messiah said to His disciples, "My mother and My brothers are these who hear the word of YAHveh and do it"  (Lk 8:21).