Fight the New Anti-Semitism

October 21, 2021 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

What exactly is an “opposing” view to the Holocaust?

What would the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust say to the Texas educator who recently requested that if the Holocaust was to be taught in schools, an “opposing” view should also be presented? Why is it that one of the most horrific tragedies of the last 2,000 years has to be debated, minimized or even called a hoax? I have to be honest, sometimes I get tired of defending the Holocaust again and again, but what is the alternative? If we let our guard down or allow for different views on possibly the greatest evil of all human history, we are one generation away from its complete disappearance from the annals of world history. may it never be!

This all started recently in Texas, when a school administrator, worried about the danger of critical race theory, decided to include Holocaust studies in his attempt at bringing a more balanced educational experience. This was in response to House Bill 3979. The complete text of that bill isn’t very long and has some merit. Among other things, the bill explains, “Teachers who choose to discuss current events or widely debated and currently controversial issues of public policy or social affairs shall, to the best of their ability, strive to explore such issues from diverse and contending perspective without giving deference to any one perspective.” Applying that part of the bill to the Holocaust led to this recent statement made by the school administrator, “Make sure that if, if you have a book on the Holocaust that you have one that has an opposing — that has other perspectives.” Does it apply to the Holocaust? I do not think so, for several reasons.

• The Holocaust is not a current event: Following the text of Bill 3979, the teaching of current events should always be done without bias or any agenda and with an explanation of the opposing view. So, is the Holocaust a “current event”? It took place during World War Two, which ended in 1945. Seventy-seven years have passed since the camps were liberated. For a while now and rightfully so, the Holocaust has been included in history books around the world because IT IS part of history. Current events are studied within the realm of social studies or political science, never history. The Holocaust is not a current event!

• The Holocaust shouldn’t be a widely debated issue: The Bill also states that “widely debated and currently controversial issues” should offer an opposing view. Frankly, the very fact that the Holocaust continues to be a hot topic should be very alarming. Holocaust denial continues to infect the historical accuracy of that era. It is debated because some have fought hard trying to debunk it. It was when the camps were liberated that General Dwight Eisenhower expressed his grave concern about what he discovered. As General Patton was vomiting at the scene, Eisenhower forced himself to look everywhere in the camp. He wrote to General George C. Marshall the following letter, “The things I saw beggar description. … The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering as to leave me a bit sick … . I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to “propaganda.”

Sadly, General Eisenhower was right and it didn’t take very long for some to deny that the Holocaust ever happened or that it was Jewish propaganda for stealing “Palestinian” land. After all, how many people looked the other way when trains passed through their villages, made of cattle cars packed with Jews? How many “Christians” sang louder in Church to cover the whistle of those trains passing through? Was it a bad case of cognitive dissonance or was it simply for selfish reasons of one’s survival? Probably both in many cases. We have those who didn’t want to believe it was happening, and that included many Jewish people at the onset of the Holocaust until it was too late to do anything, and then we have those who tried and continue to try erasing it from history. The Holocaust happened and that shouldn’t be debated.

• The Holocaust must be given deference: The Bill goes on to say that teachers, “shall, to the best of their ability, strive to explore such issues from diverse and contending perspective without giving deference to any one perspective.” I can appreciate what the bill is trying to do, it is trying to be impartial in the teaching of facts, so it doesn’t want to give teachers a chance to even appear as if they are taking a position. It is true that the Holocaust was not the only genocide in history, but it was certainly the only organized, structured and methodical attempt at the complete destruction of a people group. Additionally, it was the only genocide of human history where the perpetrators went out of their way to go retrieve Jews who had escaped to other countries, at a great cost to Germany, often believed by historians as one of the main reasons for Nazi Germany’s defeat. For this reason, the Holocaust was unique and must be given deference.

• The Holocaust was pure evil: The horrors of the Holocaust against the Jews and other minorities for a total of over twelve million innocent victims, have never been surpassed. The Holocaust was pure evil committed by evil people, and it should never be taught with alternate views in mind. The alternative to the Holocaust being evil is that it wasn’t, and this shouldn’t be an option in a normal society.

I guess, what I am trying to say here, is that the Holocaust must remain in a league of its own for the rest of mankind’s history. There are way too many recorded testimonies, artifacts and written materials for anyone to honestly defy the veracity of the event unless there is a hidden agenda behind it all. That agenda comes from Satan and is meant to delegitimize and ostracize the global Jewish community as he continues his greater destructive agenda that started centuries ago.

The Holocaust was perpetrated by people used by Satan to eliminate the Jews. Somehow, it was allowed by an all-knowing, all-powerful and all-loving God, for reasons that we will never fully comprehend with our finite human minds. There is no alternative to telling it like it is unless one succumbs to the politically correct agenda, but that agenda is not based on factual truth and the Holocaust is a factual part of history that cannot be denied, altered or erased. Texas House Bill 3979 isn’t a bad bill, but it should never apply to the Holocaust, lest we want to help those who deny that it ever happened.

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October 13, 2021 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

The 1919 Hitler Letter We Should All Read!

The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, California, is in possession of an original letter written and signed by Adolf Hitler in September of 1919, just days after he had joined the German Worker’s Party. This was 14 years before he would become Chancellor and take over Germany as a dictator. This letter was authenticated in 2011. In and of itself, a letter from a world leader of the past is a valuable piece of history, even if it doesn’t contain any important information, because it validates the very period it refers to. This letter is quite different. It is quite possibly the very first recorded use of the word “antisemitism” by Hitler. At least, it is the only one on hand. It is also a rare letter because Hitler and his core group of evil co-perpetrators went out of their way to communicate without leaving much in writing so that they couldn’t be accused of their crimes. There are several reasons why everybody should know about this letter.

The letter militates against Holocaust denial and revisionism: In the body of the letter, several references are made about the need to eliminate the Jews. Hitler doesn’t beat around the bush, even as early as 1919. He wrote “Its final aim, however, must be the uncompromising removal of the Jews altogether. “There is no way to look at such a statement and spin it in a way that would mean anything else but the desire to completely annihilate the Jews. Yet, many people around the world continue to claim that the Holocaust never happened, was grossly exaggerated or was simply some propaganda for Jews to steal and colonize “Palestine”.

The letter proves that Hitler had a desire to eliminate the Jews as early as 1919: While historians and scholars alike will continue to speculate on why Hitler was so possessed with killing all the Jews as fast as he could, nobody really doubts that he did. His goal would only exponentially increase over the next two decades as he continued to gain more power, even in the wake of the failed Beer Hall Putsch of 1923. Hitler then spent some time in prison where he would gather, structure and put down his genocidal agenda in “Mein Kampf”.

The letter proves that Hitler was not insane: We have to be very careful not to label Hitler and his lieutenants as insane. Insanity leaves the door open for people’s actions to be exonerated. It can be claimed that because of insanity, the party who acted was not really responsible. Hitler was NOT insane; he was evil and quite possibly demon-possessed; between which there is a big difference. The letter shows him being very coherent and methodical in his thinking, which is something insane people don’t usually have. However, he doesn’t base his assessment of the Jewish people on facts.

The letter ignores that antisemitism is always wrong regardless of how it is justified: Antisemitism is the irrational hatred of the Jewish people characterized by thoughts, words and/or deeds against them. There is absolutely no justification for antisemitism. Hitler wrote, “Antisemitism as a political movement must not be, cannot be, determined by emotional criteria, but only through the recognition of facts.” First, he tries to peg antisemitism as a political movement, probably in an effort to distance himself and those who would follow his advice from being accused of xenophobia. Then, he insists that antisemitism cannot be an emotional reaction; but should only be based on facts, setting the stage for his legalization of the destruction of all Jews – but are they real facts?

The letter is written on a foundation of lies called “facts”: It was fake news before fake news was even popular. He claimed that antisemitism was justified against the Jews, as long as it was not emotional but based on facts. The problem is that what he described as facts were misunderstandings at best and fabricated lies at worst. Hitler claims that “First, the Jews are definitely a race and not a religious community.” He failed to understand the difference between Judaism and Jewishness. Judaism is a religion based on the Old Testament and later the Talmud. It is followed more or less closely by Jews around the world depending on their level of orthodoxy, from secular/agnostic to ultra-orthodox. So, Judaism is something people follow, adhere to and practice out of their own volition. Jewishness, on the other hand, is something that one is born into. One or two Jewish parents will guarantee that you have Jewish lineage regardless of your adherence to Judaism. Jewishness is something that one is born with and can never lose. Judaism is a choice. They are two different sides of the coin of Jewish identity and cannot be mixed or blurred.

The letter includes the age-old lie about “the greedy Jew”: Expecting his audience not to know much about European history, Hitler accuses the Jews of being greedy and centering everything about wealth and monetary gain when he writes “The value of the individual is no longer determined by his character, by the importance of his achievements for all, but solely by the amount of his possessions, by his money.” Hitler possibly didn’t even know about the origins of this lie that goes back to the Middle Ages when Christians couldn’t borrow money from Christians and Jews couldn’t own property. Jews became money lenders, but as they charged interest, the rulers of Europe taxed them increasingly more and forced them to raise their interest rates to survive. The myth of the “Greedy Jew” was born and it lived through the ages and is alive and well today. Hitler insists that Jews do everything for money, “Everything which makes men strive for higher things, whether religion, socialism or democracy, is for him only a means to an end, to the satisfaction of a lust for money and domination. “

The letter sets the stage for the Nuremberg Laws of 1935: The Nuremberg Laws also known as the Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor were passed by Hitler and his government at the Nazi party meeting on September 15, 1935. When Hitler wrote “But antisemitism based on reason must lead to the systematic legal combating and removal of the rights of the Jew, which he alone of the foreigners living among us possesses (legislation to make them aliens), he declared that Jews had to be made aliens or foreigners in the midst of the German people. This was achieved after the Nuremberg Laws were passed and it greatly facilitated and justified the “Final Solution”

When one looks at how Adolf Hitler came to power, some call it “the perfect storm”. A weak post-war economy, a people desperate for recovery at any cost, even their own freedom, and a scapegoat. This letter clearly validates that the horrors of the Holocaust happened, and that Hitler was unashamedly behind it all. People’s rights and freedom are also at risk today. Such a letter goes beyond exposing Hitler’s intention as it serves to warn us that all that happened against the Jews could happen again, and not just against the Jews.

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September 25, 2021 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

Holocaust and Pandemic: Common Points and Differences!

I am not going to deny that the current handling of our global pandemic is strangely reminiscent of the 1930s in Europe. I even recently wrote an article about that very fact. It frightens me to see how people are being handled and even categorized based upon their decision to receive medical help or not. This is even becoming more divisive than the current political climate that has already become a tragic tear in the fabric of America.
Yet, if we simply state that this reminds us of the Holocaust and how the Jewish people were treated, we are not doing justice to the current situation and we run the risk of minimizing the Holocaust and trivializing its legacy. There are some common points between the two but there are also some differences that need to be recognized.

COMMON POINTS
• People are being stigmatized: There is a feeling of disgrace and even disapproval of those who differ in opinion from both ends of the issue. What happened to having an opinion, sharing it with others and simply and cordially agreeing to disagree? I fear that that ship might have sailed.

• Privacy is being infringed: In our age of information, instant communication and “smart” everything, our privacy is constantly shrinking. We gladly give away information for the added convenience of speaking orders to a machine and waving our hand in front of a scanner or our smart tech at a pay station. This is not going away anytime soon, if ever. The current crisis invades our privacy as it demands that we divulge private information about ourselves for “our safety” or “the safety of others”.

• The authorities are checking identity documents: In some countries, the government is trying to enforce a verification process that demands people have an ID document with their current health status.

• People are exposing their own neighbors: We are starting to see people exposing those they don’t agree with or those who they feel do not comply with what is in force. Trust is becoming a very rare commodity.

• People are being conditioned: It is not just about those who do not wish to receive medical attention, but also about those who do and who are being conditioned for further compliance to whichever organization, government or individual that will come in our future. They are also being conditioned to view other people with different opinions as potentially dangerous

• People are being separated: In some countries and in various cases, people are being placed in facilities for quarantine. There is a positive aspect of keeping infected people away from healthy ones; yet, in the current case, it would seem that healing is less important than being separated and ostracized. Some see it as a modern Ghetto, but I wouldn’t go that far.

DIFFERENCES
• Property is not being confiscated: During the Holocaust, Jewish property was being confiscated. I remember my father’s stories about his father having to relinquish his radio set, his bicycle and any other means by which he could connect and/or communicate with the outside world.

• People are not being singled out for race or ethnicity: Outside of some minority groups like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, Gypsies and mentally impaired people, the Holocaust primarily and wrongly targeted the Jews as a subhuman race in need of extermination like vermin.

• People are not being placed in forced labor: During the Holocaust, people were being forced into camps, first for internment, but they rapidly became labor camps so that the Nazi regime could get free labor during wartime. That was just temporary before the camps became death camps.

• People are not being killed: Although emotions are running high and misinformation is coming from both sides of the medical care debate today, people are not being killed for disagreeing. During the Holocaust, there was only misinformation coming from one side and it was always against the Jewish People. Placing them first in the camps for “labor”, was only temporary. They quickly became the death camps where six million were lost.

Those are the main commonalities and differences, and we should be very careful before we claim that this situation is similar to the 1930s and the Holocaust. Am I concerned? Absolutely! Could it get worse? Of course it could – and it very well might!

As Bible students and modern-day disciples of Yeshua the Messiah, the one aspect about all this that we do not want to miss, is the coming of the Antichrist on the world scene. That event is a sure thing and when it takes place, all of the points made above will become a reality beyond what anyone could fathom right now. Following are some scriptural truths about the Antichrist.

• The Antichrist is a coming global human ruler – Daniel 7-12
• He will be a Gentile – Revelation 13:1
• He will be revealed after the departure of the Holy Spirit (after the Rapture) – 2 Thessalonians 2:6-7
• He will rise to absolute power – Daniel 7:8, 20; 8:23
• He will sign a seven-year treaty with Israel – Daniel 9:27
• He will break his treaty/covenant in the middle of the seven-year Tribulation – Daniel 9:27; Matthew 24:21; Revelation 13:14-15
• He will claim that he is God – Daniel 11:36
• He will persecute the Jewish People (and all those who take the mark of the beast) – Daniel 7:21
• He will set up and start “the abomination of desolation” – Daniel 12:11
• He will invade Israel – Daniel 11:40-45; Ezekiel 38-39
• He will conquer – Daniel 11:38-44
• He will be defeated – Daniel 7:11, 26; 9:27

Let’s not jump the gun, but let’s be diligent about the current events. There are obvious similarities and they are frightening. Things will eventually go south for mankind and get a lot worse, but we also must remember that our hope is and should continue to be in the Messiah of Israel, His redeeming atonement for us all (Isaiah 52:13-53:12) and His imminent return. It is those who have placed their trust in Yeshua of Nazareth who will join Him before it gets to the point of “the abomination of desolation”. Are you in?

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August 30, 2021 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

Differences Between the Church and Israel – Part 2

At a time when nearly two-thirds of all Christians believe that the Church has replaced Israel in God’s program, it is very important to define who is Israel and what makes the Church or Body of Messiah. Are they the same? Does one eventually replace or supersedes the other? Are they the same but during two different eras of humankind? Last time, we looked at the first five differences. Let’s look at five more:

6 Israel will be judged on earth
Ezekiel 20:34-36 I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you from the lands where you are scattered, with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and with wrath poured out; 35 and I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I will enter into judgment with you face to face. 36 As I entered into judgment with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will enter into judgment with you,” declares the Lord God.

6 The Church will be judged in Heaven (Bema Seat)
2 Corinthians 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Messiah, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

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7 Physical Birth is required to be part of Israel
Genesis 35:10-12 10 God said to him, “Your name is Jacob; You shall no longer be called Jacob, But Israel shall be your name.” Thus He called him Israel. 11 God also said to him, “I am God Almighty; Be fruitful and multiply; A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, And kings shall come forth from you. 12 “The land which I gave to Abraham and Isaac, I will give it to you, And I will give the land to your descendants after you.”

7 Spiritual Birth is required to be part of the Church
John 3:4-6 Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?” 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

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8 The Holy Spirit indwelt OT Jews temporarily
Joel 2:28 It will come about after this That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; And your sons and daughters will prophesy, Your old men will dream dreams, Your young men will see visions (SELECTIVELY)

1 Samuel 16:14 Now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord terrorized him (TEMPORARILY).

8 The Holy Spirit indwells believers permanently
1 Corinthians 12:13 For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. (CORPORATELY)

John 14:16 I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever;(PERMANENTLY).

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9 Israel’s priesthood is only from the tribe of Levi

Numbers 18:1-3 The Lord said to Aaron, “You, your sons and your family are to bear the responsibility for offenses connected with the sanctuary, and you and your sons alone are to bear the responsibility for offenses connected with the priesthood.²Bring your fellow Levites from your ancestral tribe to join you and assist you when you and your sons minister before the tent of the covenant law. ³They are to be responsible to you and are to perform all the duties of the tent.

9 The Church includes the priesthood of all believers

Revelation 1:6 and He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father—to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.

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10 God directly ratified several covenants with Israel

Jeremiah 31:31-32 Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord.

10 The Church partially benefits from the covenants

Romans 11:11,17 I say then, they did not stumble so as to fall, did they? May it never be! But by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make them jealous… 17 But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree.

Additionally, there is a verse that I like to point people to that speaks of three distinct groups of people.
1 Corinthians 10:32 Give no offense either to Jews or to Greeks or to the Church of God;

If the Church replaced Israel, why does Paul speak of the Church of God AND the Jews in that verse? In reality, the Church comprises two groups Jews and Gentiles (nations.) There are unbelieving Jews part of Israel and believing Jews part of Israel and the Church. It is the same for the Gentiles. There are unbelieving Gentiles (from all nations) and believing Gentiles from all nations, part of the Church. It doesn’t need to be complicated.

There is another important distinction that must be made regarding the appearance of Yeshua both at the time of the Rapture and at the time of the Second Coming which two completely different events separated by at least seven years.

ISRAEL INITIATES THE SECOND COMING OF THE MESSIAH

Matthew 23:39 For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!”

Zechariah 12:10 “I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.

THE CHURCH RETURNS AT THE SECOND COMING OF MESSIAH

Revelation 17:14 These will wage war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, because He is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those who are with Him are the called and chosen and faithful.”

So, from these differences found in the Scriptures, we can deduce with certainty that:

ISRAEL IS NOT THE SAME AS CHURCH
THE CHURCH HAS NOT REPLACED ISRAEL
ISRAEL WILL USHER IN THE SECOND COMING
ALL ETHNIC ISRAEL WILL BECOME BELIEVING ISRAEL
SOME OF ETHNIC ISRAEL CAN INCORPORATE INTO THE
CHURCH
ISRAEL AND THE CHURCH ARE BOTH IN GOD’S PROGRAM.

KEEPING ISRAEL AND THE CHURCH SEPARATE IS CRITICAL BECAUSE IT IS BIBLICAL AND HAS MAJOR PROPHETIC IMPLICATIONS.

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August 21, 2021 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

Differences Between the Church and Israel – Part 1

At a time when nearly two-thirds of all Christians believe that the Church has replaced Israel in God’s program, it is very important to define who is Israel and what makes the Church or Body of Messiah. Are they the same? Does one eventually replace or supersedes the other? Are they the same but during two different eras of humankind? First, let’s look at a few definitions before we can explore the topic because our conclusion will depend greatly on how we view the Bible and how we read it AND interpret it.

Exegesis is of great import. Exegesis means “exposition or explanation.” Biblical exegesis involves the examination of a particular text of Scripture in order to properly interpret it, and as such, is a part of the process of hermeneutics.

Biblical hermeneutics is the study of the principles of interpretation concerning the books of the Bible. One can have a literal approach to the Scriptures or a more allegorical approach, leaving room for different interpretations over time, by various people. I don’t understand how one could possibly look at the Bible and allegorize passages right and left, simply because at first glance they don’t seem to make sense. If the Bible is God’s love letter and instruction to us, it has to mean the same thing to all people, otherwise, the relative truth found on its pages will vary greatly and chaos will proceed from that confused approach. The key is in our interpretation and good interpretation requires study–something that many people are not properly equipped to do or simply do not want to take the time to do. This being said, there is still room in the Bible for figures of speech as long as they are interpreted methodically and consistently.

Years ago, theologian David L. Cooper (1886-1965) came up with a definition that has become known as “the golden rule of interpretation.” He said, “When the plain sense of Scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense; therefore, take every word at its primary, ordinary, usual, literal meaning unless the facts of the immediate context, studied in the light of related passages and axiomatic and fundamental truths, indicate clearly otherwise.”

From that, we can safely say that A TEXT WITHOUT A CONTEXT IS A PRETEXT. Furthermore, it is when we look at the Bible out of its historical/grammatical context that we derive this faulty theological approach to the Scriptures known as Replacement Theology, transferring all blessings and promises made by God to physical, ethnic Israel to the Christian Church, often seen as the “New Israel.” Keeping the proper approach, we must ask ourselves some fundamental questions about the Church and Israel: Is there biblical proof that the Church has replaced Israel? Are the Church and Israel two separate entities? If so, what are their individual purposes? Is Replacement Theology Dangerous? How different are the Church and Israel?

Let’s look at 5 differences between the Church and Israel, found in the Bible. Let’s allow the word of God to speak for itself.

1a. Israel is the Wife of Jehovah
Isaiah 54:5-6, 17 “For your husband is your Maker, Whose name is the Lord of hosts; And your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel, Who is called the God of all the earth. 6 “For the Lord has called you, like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, even like a wife of one’s youth when she is rejected,” … No weapon that is formed against you will prosper.

1b. The Church is the Bride of Messiah
Ephesians 5:22-25, 32 Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife, as Messiah also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. 24 But as the church is subject to Messiah, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Messiah also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, …32 This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Messiah and the church.

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2a. Israel Gave Birth to the Messiah
Revelation 12:1-5 A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; 2 and she was with child; and she cried out, being in labor and in pain to give birth. …5 And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron; and her child was caught up to God and to His throne.

2b. Messiah Gave Birth to the Church
Matthew 16:18 I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.

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3a. Messiah Rescues Israel at the End of the Tribulation
Matthew 23:39 For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!”

3b. Messiah Rescues the Church at the Rapture

John 14:1-3 “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. 3 If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.

1 Thessalonians 4:14-17 For if we believe that Yeshua died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. 15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.

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4a. God’s Program with Israel Started in Genesis 12
Genesis 12:1-3 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go forth from your country, And from your relatives And from your father’s house, To the land which I will show you; 2 And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; 3 And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

4b. God’s Program with the Church Started in Acts 2
Acts 2:1-4 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.

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5a. Israel is a Nation
Deuteronomy 4:6-8 So keep and do them, for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ 7 For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as is the Lord our God whenever we call on Him? 8 Or what great nation is there that has statutes and judgments as righteous as this whole law which I am setting before you today?

5b. The Church is Made of many Nations
Acts 2:5, 9-11 5 Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven….9 Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11 Cretans and Arabs—we hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God.”

These are five biblical reasons why we must keep the Church and Israel separate in the Bible and in God’s program. Doing otherwise is not doing justice to the Scriptures, and when we start looking at Israel and the Jewish people as having been replaced by the Church, it is a very short road to anti-Israel sentiment, and it ends up making believers feel like they are justified in ostracizing and even demonizing Israel. A non-literal approach to God’s counsel leads to Replacement Theology which is very fertile soil for antisemitism. Christians beware!

Next week we will look at five more biblical reasons.

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