WHY CHRISTIANS SHOULD PRAY FOR ISRAEL AND THE JEWS.

        After rehearsing the many negative comments made by authors in the past, here is a positive exhortation from God regarding prayer for Israel and the Jews.

   The gospel is first for the Jew.- “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.” – Romans,ch.1,v.16.

    God’s purpose is for all Israel to be saved, –“Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel ill be saved.”- Romans,ch11,v25-26.

      God has commanded all believers to pray for Israel.-“ You who call on the Lord, give yourselves no rest, and give Him no rest till He establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth.”-Isaiah,ch.62,v.6-7.                  “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “ May those who love you be secure . May there be peace within your walls and security within your citadels.”-Psalm 122,v.6-7.

         The apostle Paul prayed earnestly for his people…-“Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved.”-Romans,ch.10,v.1.

      Judaism is without the power to achieve salvation: it is the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit alone. –“We who are Jews by birth ….know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ….because by observing the law no-one will be justified.”- Gal.ch.2,v.15-16     “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith- and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- not of works.”- Eph.ch.2,v.8-9

     All believers are in Jesus Christ are part of one body.-“For we were all baptised by one Spirit into one body,- whether Jews or Greeks…” 1 Cor.ch.12,v.13.

      Jews now are beginning to hear and respond to the gospel of salvation in increasing numbers.-“Prophesy to these bones and say to them, Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.”-Ezek.ch.37,v.4

        There is a debt which everyone owes to the Jews…”for salvation is from the Jews”- John,ch.4,v.22.

      God has promised to rebuild Israel with a faithful remnant,-“After this I will return and rebuild David’s fallen tent… that the remnant of men may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles…Acts,ch.15,v.16-17.

         God has promised to favour those who pray and bless Israel.-“I will bless those who bless you…”Gen.ch.12,v.3.

     We are urged to pray for all governments that they make decisions in God’s will, and this applies to the leadership in Israel too.-“  I urge then , first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone- for kings and all those in authority, that we may lead peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.”-1 Tim.ch.2,v.1.

      Pray for God to defend Israel against the non-democratic nations which surround it.-“Hear O  Lord, the cry of Judah…Oh, be his help against his foes.” Deut,ch.33,v7.

Pretexts for the hatred of the Jews…contd.

      The victimisation of Jewish minorities which was suffered in Occupied Europe during world war 11 has since then undergone a metamorphosis and has become a mindless hatred of “absentee Jews”,- Jews who have migrated from their old host countries to settle in their homeland, while a hatred lingers in the lands they have left. The relics of this age-old hatred are known as “ anti-Zionism”. This form of hatred is now rampant in most Muslim cultures, and has become more evident in the pan-African organisations, and within the great international organisations,  such as the U.N.O. and the E.U.

    It was this insane hatred of the Jews which impelled the Nazi regime towards genocide, and, of course, caused the self-destruction of that regime by its diversion of resources towards mass murder. The same hatred prompted the genocides attempted by Pharaoh, Haman, Nebuchadnezzar and Titus. This hatred was defined by Elie Wiesel in March, 2005 :- “ It was man’s inhumanity to man -  NO  !  It was man’s inhumanity to Jews. Jews were not killed because they were human beings. In the eyes of the killers, they were not human beings. They were Jews.”

       Beneath this hatred and mindless fear of the Jews is an unconscious spiritual carcinoma. Among the complex forces which generate this hatred of the Jews or anti-Zionism is a spiritual issue. Its origin does not lie in politics,economics,financial acumen of the Jews, the occupation of land, religious practices,race, or history.  It is to do with the sovereign purposes of God in His choice of Israel, and His identity as the Judaeo-Christian God and His Messiah, Jesus Christ. If  this issue is re-phrased, then this hostility is generated by the negative spirit which rejects the salvation which is from the Jews in the Person of the Messiah Jesus, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the King of the Jews.

    Therefore it could be stated that beneath all the pretexts and excuses for the hatred of the Jews is an age-old, futile opposition to God and His Messiah, and the human attempts to ignore, disrupt or circumvent His sovereign purpose to offer the only salvation which is acceptable to Him, which is, salvation by grace through faith and simple trust in His Son, Jesus Christ.

      Jesus said ,”   He who hates Me hates My Father also,”  and “They hated Me without a cause.” John’s gospel,ch.15,v23, v25.

 

                    qui  s’excuse, s’ accuse.

     ( If expanded, I think that this means :” The one who makes excuses for himself, in effect, accuses himself.)

    THE  END  OF PRETEXTS FOR HATRED  OF THE  JEWS.

    (  A MORE POSITIVE BLOG SHOULD FOLLOW THIS ! PRAISE GOD !)

Pretexts for hatred of the Jews….contd…

      It was a grievous fact that these same non-democratic states were the home of most European Jews, where they faced the murderous intentions of the local militias ,- the Iron Guard in Romania, the Ustashe in Croatia, the Arrow Cross in Hungary, and the Hlinka Guard in Slovakia. Some local populations were more more brutal in their murderous activity than their German invaders.One instance could be cited : in the Polish village of Jedwabne in July,1941 more than 1600 Jewish villagers were done to death by their neighbours.

 

   TO BE CONTINUED…

Pretexts for hatred of the Jews..contd..

     During the years in which the Holocaust took place (1941-45) many fleeing refugees and escapees were given compassionate and risky reception and sacrificial assistance by their neighbours and those in authority.  Even before those years, the Jewish community in Germany realised that a storm was gathering after the events of  “Kristallnacht” ( November, 10th. 1938), when 1000 synagogues were destroyed and 91 Jews were murdered. The Jewish authorities asked for the British to allow their children to be evacuated to the Mandated territory in Palestine. Britain refused this request in order not to offend the resident Arabs. Despite this set-back, the Jewish leaders in Britain persuaded Parliament to admit some Jewish children and give them refuge , and 198 children arrived in December of that year at Harwich.

    There is the testimony of many hundreds in Occupied Europe who were saved from certain death by friendly small-holders, farmers, partisans, officials, and even the local police. Such unsolicited favour and mercy shown to so many stands in sharp contrast to the malicious treatment accorded to many Jews by local populations who collaborated readily with the S.S. squads and the Einsatzgruppen in the detention and murder of their erstwhile Jewish neighbours throughout Occupied Europe. In many countries the civil servants, gendarmerie, police, and partisans willingly co-operated with their Nazi overlords in the extermination programme devised by their conquerors. Such localised hostility towards indigenous Jews seems to have been the outworking of a pan-European phenomenon which welled-up as a release valve in the newly-created autocracies which arose on the ruins of old monarchies after world war 1. These illiberal autocracies in Soviet Russia, Italy, Austria, Romania,Hungary, Bulgaria, Albania, Yugoslavia, Poland, Greece, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania stifled popular dissent. As a result there was a surrender of individual and collective social responsibility to the powers of the state machine, which was generally anti-Semitic in outlook. Communal aggression and a craving for plunder was given opportunity to exercise itself by official sanctions by these anti-Jewish governments.

Pretexts for hatred of the Jews ….contd..

       After the revolutionary outbreaks in various European centres (1848-49), such as Milan,Sicily, Paris, Venice, Berlin,Vienna, Bavaria  and Hungary, it was thought by some writers that the Jews were sponsoring or supporting dangerous,nationalistic ideologies. As the century wore on Jews were associated with liberal, radical, socialist and finally, communist ideals. Of course, other Jews were freely engaged in capitalist ventures as entrepreneurs. Some writers put forward the paradox that if Jews could be expelled from Germany and France then both capitalism and socialism could be overthrown.

        A new focus for hatred of the Jews appeared after the Russian revolution of 1917.  The prominence of several Jews, such as Marx (an apostate Jew), Trotsky, Radek, Kamenev, Zinoviev and Bela Kuhn in Hungary was taken as proof that Bolshevism was Jewish in origin and nature. The Communist International and the leadership of the Bolshevist movement was thought to be entirely in the hands of Jews, and the fear of an “eastern Bolshevist assault “  became the basis of much of  the national-socialist ideology in Germany in the 1920-30’s

       All these phobias became fused into an ominous phantasmagoria in Germany in the early 20th.century where the mixed illusions appeared as Jews, Masons, Bolsheviks, international capitalists, atheists and arch conspirators, all of whom formulated their plots in “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” after 1905. Much of this fantasy script is a direct plagiarism of a work of 1865 written by M.Joly. The compiling of this work was done by Ratshkovsky ( an agent of the Russian secret police- the Ochrana), and it became the veritable document which created the warrant for the Holocaust .

   TO BE CONTINUED…

Pretexts used for the hatred of the Jews…contd…

     Jews were frequently proficient in many trades and crafts, but because the relevant guilds excluded them, they often had to resort to financial dealing and banking for the courts of princely rulers. Trades people also treated them as economic rivals with allegiance to a “different “ culture.

    Because Jews, even “converted”  Jews pursued a different life-style from others in Christianised Europe their lack of conformity engendered suspicion, which was given some substance by the Jews’ self-induced exclusivity and ghetto mentality. Christians in medieval Europe rigidly observed its three main celebrations and its numerous saints’ and holy days, while the Jews proclaimed their dissonance in their feasts,- Passover, Weeks, Tabernacles, Trumpets, the day of Atonement, Purim and Hanukka. The Jewish observance of the Sabbath rest and the evident work and business activity on the first day (Sunday) provoked more discord between them and their host societies.

    Resentment of the Jews’ competence in finance and money-lending, and their association,- and even employment,- with many ruling houses in medieval Europe as “court Jews” caused a vague distrust of Jews among the poor in society.

   The old resentments against the Jews grew into a nameless fear of their power and influence, prompted by a feeling of inferiority and impotence because of the Jews’ remarkable successes and survivals through many centuries of suffering, pogroms and expulsions. Their many accomplishments in the realms of commerce,finance,medicine, the arts, science, philosophy, economics, and a general acuity in the reasoning processes,- itself the outcome of centuries of close study of the scriptures and rabbinic writings,- all these factors aroused an envy and a subconscious fear of a “Jewish ascendancy “ in late medieval Europe. This phobia found expression in the myths on which the Protocols of the Elders of Zion were founded.

   Jews in the 19th. century came into view in a new light: they were then seen as a threat to the racial purity of the Nordic or Teutonic peoples of Germany and Austria, where an “Aryan myth “ was voiced by some writers. The Jews were considered to be “Orientals” who would weaken the purity of “Aryan blood”. This had some resemblance to the fear which arose among the Spanish nobility in the 16th.century because of the presence of alien blood traits in society. The emphasis on a racial dissimilarity was supported by a form of social Darwinism, which upheld the theory that the Teutonic peoples had evolved as the superior race over many generations.

   A  strange feature of this so-called racial difference between Jews and northern Europeans  was the physiological distinction which was thought to exist between them , coupled with with medieval fantasies that the Jews were lecherous and emanated a distinct smell ,- the “foetor Judaicus.”

     After the gradual emancipation of the Jews from their civil disabilities in the 19th. and early 20th. centuries they achieved a new status of equality. Many enterprising Jews became socially mobile and aroused some resentment; they were seen as the latest parvenues.  Despite this, many Jews plied their trades in lowly and despised positions.