Israel

November 10, 2021 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

We Are Closer to a New Kristallnacht Than You Think!

Kristallnacht took place on the night of November 9-10, 1938 in Germany. During that dreadful night, a critical event took place that would seal the fate of six million European Jews. That was 83 years ago. The event is known as Kristallnacht or “The Night of Broken Glass.” The reason given by the Nazis was the assassination of German official Ernst vom Rath, shot two days prior by Herschel Grynszpan, a Polish teenager reacting to his parents’ deportation. In reality, the boycott/pogrom of Jewish synagogues, schools, businesses and homes resulting in the death of almost 100 Jewish people and the destruction of 7,500 properties were well planned, and anything but a reaction to the death of a German official. As a result, 30,000 Jewish people were sent to concentration camps. Historians agree that Kristallnacht was the onset of the Holocaust, shifting Nazi antisemitism from mere rhetoric to pure violence and murder. It set in motion the death factories aimed at accomplishing “the final solution to the Jewish question.” They almost succeeded! Whenever there is any kind of abuse in the whether it be the tight vise of a dictatorship, religious fanaticism or ethnic cleansing to name just a few, the grip of abuse is always facilitated by the apathy of those who could make a difference.

It has been my intention, each and every year, to remind my audience about the importance of that event and why we should remember and commemorate Kristallnacht. Given that a recent survey showed that 32% to 50% of young Americans had very little to no knowledge or understanding of the Holocaust, my job is not done. In following current events on the topic of antisemitism against global Jews and Israel, it is not difficult to see that another event akin to Kristallnacht could very well happen today wherever there is a sizeable Jewish community. There are five criteria that connect to Kristallnacht: identification, demonization, ostracism and apathy. All these were employed in preparation for the final destruction planned by Hitler. They have parallels in today’s world and how the Jewish people are perceived and handled.

• Identification (1933): Hitler was obsessed with streamlining the population to bring about the ultimate Aryan race, but he would have to identify people to do it efficiently. As early as January 1933, soon after his ascent to power in Germany, he set up a passport. It was known as the Ahnenpass or “Ancestor Pass”. It was created to establish an Aryan identity as opposed to other races or ethnicities. It was based on the pseudo-science of Eugenics, in an effort to create a superior race. The Ahnenpass became an official piece of identification for people to prove that they were of “German blood”. The other side of that coin was that anybody who didn’t have an Ahnenpass would be identified as “non-Aryan” and stigmatized for further actions against them. Anytime a passport is created to divide the population, it is only the beginning and it inevitably creates hardships, division and inequality. A passport can be started for social, political, racial or even health reasons.

• Demonization (1935): What the Ahnenpass started was reinforced by new racial laws enacted by the Nazi party known as “Nuremberg Race Laws” or more commonly, “The Nuremberg Laws” (not to be confused with the post-war “Nuremberg Trials” of the Nazi murderers). The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 were divided into two categories. One was The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour and the other was The Reich Citizenship Law. Both were based on the false science of Eugenics or racial purity. In their entirety, The Nuremberg Laws were aimed at ostracizing the Jews from German society to the point of making work, life and socializing virtually impossible. They represented the foundation for the Nazi definition of who is a Jew, who is Aryan and as a result, who deserved to live and who deserved to die. It is always easier to demonize those you first ostracize.

Marriage between Jews and non-Jews became forbidden. Jewish-owned stores were taken over. Jews wanting to leave Germany were taxed up to 90% of their estates. Jews were required to carry identity cards with the letter “J” stamped on it as well as being forced to insert the middle name of “Israel” for males and “Sara” for females on their papers. Jewish doctors could no longer treat non-Jewish patients. The Jew became demonized and as such, became unwanted. A complicated bureaucracy of anti-Semitic statutes was enacted, transforming the Jews from humans to animals to parasites, and thus requiring their “extermination” for the betterment of the world, or of the Third Reich at the very least. Demonization was soon deemed not enough and Nazi Germany had to take it a step further and ostracize the Jews.

Today, the modern Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) seeks to demonize both the Jews and the land of Israel. It takes its cue from the evil era of the Holocaust and paints a picture of Israel as an occupier, colonizer and committer of ethnic cleansing. This unfounded demonization is from the devil, and he uses all walks of life to commit his crimes, from the right to the left to academia to Hollywood to the Church.

• Ostracism (1938): During the night of November 9-10, 1938, a pogrom took place in Germany that would result in great property damage and loss of Jewish lives. Jewish stores were attacked and looted, synagogues were burned to the ground, people died, but more importantly, the Jewish community understood that they were not safe anymore and that they had nowhere to go. They were officially excluded from all aspects of German life and society. They lost all their privileges. There are countries today that are trying to ban kosher ritual laws and as a result, cripple Jewish life for some segments of the Jewish religious community.

• Destruction (1939): Not too long after Kristallnacht, the Nazi killing machine was set in motion. It claimed the lives of a grand total of twelve million people who didn’t fit the “Aryan” mold, half of them simply because they were Jewish. First with the Einzatsgruppen or “mobile killing squads”, who shot Jews in large numbers. Yad Vashem explains, “The Einsatzgruppen killed their victims—men, women, and children—by gathering them in ravines, mines, quarries, ditches, or pits dug specifically for this purpose. Jews were forced to hand over their possessions and remove their clothing and were then shot. Their bodies were thrown into the ditches.” That required a lot of bullets which at the time were needed for the war effort, so the Reich developed the “gas vans”, to kill more Jews faster and without shooting them. The gas vans proved more efficient and they led to the construction and usage of the infamous gas chambers. Destruction was moving speedily forward.

Today, Jews are being killed again, simply for being Jewish. We are not seeing mass murder of Jews like in the Holocaust, not even close. Yet. Although we know biblically that the whole world will eventually turn on Israel (Zechariah 12:9), and even though God will come to Israel’s rescue, based on His covenants and His character, many Jewish people remain at risk. The main reason why Jewish people remain at risk is not antisemitism by commission, but apathy, which I call antisemitism by omission. The less people care, the more damage can go unnoticed. Apathy happens for a variety of reasons, none of them justifiable when it comes to human life.

There are many similarities today between the way the Jewish people were treated as a result of the events of Kristallnacht and the way our liberties are shrinking exponentially. Convenience has become the mother of tyrannical slavery. We are willing to let go of our freedom for the sake of having a more comfortable life. In the process, people don’t dare to get involved in what they feel doesn’t concern them. The Jewish people have fewer and fewer friends in the non-Jewish world.

Kristallnacht happened under the nose of a very civilized and educated German society. What makes us believe that another Kristallnacht could not happen today? We live in a civilized and educated world that has also become politically correct and apathetic… the soil is fertile for such a tragedy. It is up to us to remember and speak up!

“First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

Martin Niemöller, German Theologian and Pastor, 1946

November 8, 2021 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

The Lethal Downward Spiral of Antisemitism!

As antisemitism continues to grow worldwide, we need to clearly understand how it operates if we want to fight it successfully. The first thing that we must do is to look at a definition of antisemitism, and there are plenty of them from brief to lengthy, from detailed to too vague. For a while, I have favored the one definition penned by Edward Flannery in his seminal work, The Anguish of the Jews. In his extremely well-researched book, he defines it as follows: “Antisemitism is attitudes, words, or actions that embody hatred or contempt of the Jewish people as such.” Over the years, I have come to adjust his definition to come up with my own as follows, “Antisemitism is the irrational hatred of the Jewish people and Israel characterized by thoughts, words and/or deeds against them.”

They might appear to be almost identical, but a few details need to be made clear. First, we must understand that antisemitism is irrational. It doesn’t follow logic, never has and never will! What started simply as theological anti-Judaism without malice, slowly morphed into pure hatred over the centuries. The Jew was theologically different from the Christian and continues to be. The differences went from theological to cultural to racial, leading people to want to rid the planet of all Jewish people. I cover that progression in detail in End-Times Antisemitism, where I chronicle 2,000 years of antisemitism. Jewish history can definitely be studied by connecting the awful acts of antisemitism committed by Christians and non-Christians alike. I would venture to say that it is punctuated by these acts.

The irrationality of antisemitism makes it very unique on the despicable list of racism and xenophobia. Not that racism should ever be justified, but in many cases, it is based on cultural, social, historical and or geographical differences leading to unfortunate misunderstandings. In the case of antisemitism, the hatred of the Jewish people is never based on facts and in some cases, there are people around the globe who hate the Jewish people with a passion, and yet, have never met one Jewish person in their life. This qualifies as highly irrational. It doesn’t follow logic at all. Additionally, antisemitism rallies people on the absolute opposite side of the ideological spectrum. Where else can you find radical Islamists and liberal leftists making a concerted effort to hurt Israel and the Jewish people? Antisemitism exists all across the political spectrum, from Left to Right. The Jewish people are the only people group in history to have been equally accused of being communists and being capitalists.

Next in the definition, is the fact that antisemitism targets both the Jewish people as a people group as well as Israel as a country. No other form of racism or xenophobia includes people and country. If someone–God forbid–has a hatred of African people, they don’t usually call for the complete destruction of Africa or any other countries within that continent. Only anti-Semites seek to harm both the people and the land. This is often due to their acceptance of the “occupation” and “colonizing” narrative painting the “Palestinian” people as displaced people whose land was stolen by the “Zionist occupiers”. This is a narrative that is based on the false premise that the Palestinian people used to live in the Land of Palestine before Israel stole it. It cannot be validated historically, archaeologically or culturally.

The hatred spewed by antisemitism can be manifested in a variety of ways that go from thoughts and attitudes to words and finally to actions. There seems to be a progressive move from thoughts to words to deeds in many cases. People will often think negatively of Jewish people or Israel, but it seldom stops there. It usually moves to words at some point. A recent example took place in Texas in the city of Austin. On October 24, 2021, a few people claiming to belong to the neo-Nazi group “Goyim Defense League” displayed a banner from a freeway bridge reading “Vax the Jews”, (as in “kill the Jews” ) right around the corner from the West Austin Jewish Community Center, “Shalom Austin.” It is unclear if it was related to graffiti of a swastika found on the grounds of an Austin high school the day before. A week later, also in Austin, a fire was started outside a synagogue. It also remains unclear if it was a case of antisemitism and if the two were connected. The next day, a man in Brooklyn threw a Molotov cocktail inside a Jewish Deli. I could continue with a long list.

These are just a few acts of antisemitism. What is important to understand is that these acts don’t have to be committed by the same person or group to be dangerous. Each act of antisemitism emboldens other Jew-haters to commit their own crimes against Jewish people in their own communities, being in words or deeds or both. A nasty statement in one place or on the Internet will encourage other slurs somewhere else and might become the spark for the destruction of property or human lives. Remember that antisemitism is very irrational. The point is that antisemitism almost never remains a negative or nasty thought about the Jews. It will grow into words–easily spread across the globe in the age of the Internet–and the words run the risk of leading to actions. It is a downward spiral of hatred that should concern all of us.

The third phase of antisemitism is bad enough when it involves defacing or destruction of property such as synagogues, cemeteries or community centers, but it doesn’t stop there anymore. I have documented that since 2012, Jews are being killed again. Ilan Halimi, Mireille Knoll, Sarah Halimi (not related to Ilan), the Toulouse Jewish day school massacre of one rabbi and three students, the Paris kosher supermarket death of four shoppers, the Pittsburgh Synagogue, the San Diego attack. The last decade has seen the death of over twenty Jewish people around the world. Twenty lives may not seem like a large number. When we see murders in our large cities over a weekend number that and more almost every weekend, this hardly seems to garner attention. However, in the day in which we live when one life is taken by police and the national and international outcry that is heard is LOUD, where is the outcry for these lives? Antisemitism is going unreported and unnoticed. Who is going to stand up and be counted?

The lethal downward spiral of antisemitism is going to continue and possibly increase in numbers and intensity. Its irrational nature appears very rational to those who commit antisemitic crimes because they are led by Satan, the ultimate enemy of God – and therefore, the ultimate enemy of His chosen people, the Jewish people. If we hear a joke about the Jewish people or see something in print that can appear harmless at first, it is our duty to speak up and expose the lies. It starts with a joke, it becomes graffiti and before you know it, someone dies. That is a slippery slope that we all should keep people from at any cost!

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.

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?

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.

__________

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.

__________

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).

__________

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.

__________

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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