Here is another great sermon by David
Pawson. When you read it, you will see
God’s hand in current history. Hopefully
my Cliff’s Notes (since the sermon was over 1-1/2 hours) still caught all the
highlights.
History’s greatest disasters happened
in the 20th century. And of
all of them, the most horrific was the holocaust. The murder of 6 million Jews, one-quarter of
them children, still seems unbelievable in the world. They weren’t even fighting anybody. It was
genocide, the murder of a race. Euphemisms abounded—the Germans called it a
“solution,” (as if there were a problem); it’s also called “ethnic cleansing.”
Here is a terrible fact that has been
hidden from us. In 1938, the nations of
the world realized that the Jews of Europe were in mortal peril—150,000 had
already fled Germany, and they all knew full well what Hitler was going to do,
since he laid out his fanatical hatred of the Jews 13 years before in his autobiography,
Mein Kampf. Franklin D. Roosevelt called
a 10-day conference in July at a famous spa resort on Lake Geneva called
Evian-les-Baines; 32 nations’ diplomats showed up. He wanted to discuss what could be done to
help Jews fleeing Nazi persecution. They
finally decided that changing immigration laws were the only option. They desperately needed to open up nations to
fleeing Jewish refugees. But two of the ‘great powers’ (U.S. and France)
flat-out refused to help. The U.S. said they ‘can’t take any more.’ This set the tone for the conference; only three
nations offered minimal help—Britain offered to take a few thousand children.
The Netherlands and the Dominican Republic were willing to take a few hundred
adults. So the conference was a failure,
and after the first day, most of the delegates were out sailing on their boats
on Lake Geneva. Observers went back to
Germany and reported to Hitler, “you can do what you like with the Jews, the
nations don’t care.” Mr. Pawson believes
that World War II was God’s judgment on the Western nations.
It was realized as early as 1942 that
the Jews were not only persecuted, but being exterminated as a regular daily occurrence
in camps. This was obtained through
decoding of the Enigma spy decoder that the U.K. obtained a copy of; it was
valuable for determining enemy positions.
Part of the reason we didn’t consider swooping in to rescue was that
Hitler would know we figured out his Enigma, and change the code. (Ed. Note:
But why didn’t we bomb all the railroad lines leading up to them, to at
least slow down the slaughter? And,
since it was a good bet that the genocide would speed up if the Germans were
losing, and since victory was pretty certain by early spring 1945 (when the
Battle of the Bulge didn’t stop us), why did the Allies not send special elite
troops of commandos to take control over the camps? The Air Force could be sent to defend the
commandos’ positions. It would not have
required any exhaustion of our forces at all.)
(Further notes: Of nations under Nazi rule, Poland, where
most of the death camps were, has the terrible distinction of wiping out the highest
percentage of Jews who populated there pre-war:
they murdered 3 million of their 3.3 million original population, or
90%. Shockingly, a close second place
was Greece, who murdered 87% of its pre-war Jewish population. At the other
end, Denmark only killed 1% of their populated Jews, despite pressure to do
more from their Nazi masters. Last
note: Most of the Ukrainian refugees, in
their current war with Russia, are going to Poland—how will they treat them, I
wonder?)
Back to Mr. Pawson: I could tell many grisly stories about how
‘functional’ the Germans found their Jewish prisoners—hair for cushions, skin
for lampshades, their fat for soap, even their ashes for fertilizer. In
Treblinka, the fields were a yard deep in ashes. Let’s not go any further. The whole story can be visually obtained in
London, at the Imperial War Museum; or by reading Martin Gilbert’s book, ‘The
Holocaust: Jewish Tragedy.’
Think about the irony of it: Germany, the land of Luther, together with
Germanic Austria, with their combined beautiful culture in Berlin and Vienna, and
their glorious history of musical composers—Beethoven, Mozart, Strauss—yet that
is where the germ of Jewish hatred began—in a ‘Christian’ country, not in
Islam. But Germany also led the world in theologians who believed in Higher
Criticism—the purpose of whose efforts was to denounce as liars and fakery the
God-inspired Scripture. By destroying
faith in the Bible, it helped empty the churches in Germany; and its poisoned
work spread to Britain and the U.S. Many of our seminaries are still teaching
our new pastors not to trust everything in Scripture as Truth.
The big question is, “why did this
happen in Germany first?” It was
‘Christian;’ the northern half was Protestant Lutheran, the southern half
Catholic. We’ll start with Hitler. He didn’t always hate the Jews. He started out as a failed watercolor artist
in Vienna, so poor he didn’t have an overcoat.
And a rabbi took pity on him and gave him one, which Hitler wore for
years. But Vienna already had a strong
anti-Semitic mood. Jews were
despised—but Hitler wrote this in his diary: “In the Jew, I saw only a man who was of different
religion; and therefore I was against the idea that he should be attacked just
because he had a different faith. Anti-Semitism
is unworthy of the cultural traditions of a great people.” Can you believe that? So, what went wrong? He actually began his massive
killing spree (October 1939) not with the Jews, but with the physically and
mentally disabled. They were herded into
trucks, hose pipes were connected to passenger chambers, and they were gassed
by carbon monoxide. Then he moved on to the elderly, whom he regarded as
‘useless eaters.’ He conducted this killing under the guise of a Euthanasia
program. (Euthanasia is now legal in the following European countries: Belgium, Netherlands, Holland and let’s throw
in Canada—under Justin Trudeau—but not Britain; and surprise, it is legal in a
Catholic country in Europe, Spain). They
often pressure the old, lonely patient shoved off into a nursing home, about
quality of life, and assist in their death.
Hitler’s SS men asked no questions:
They tottered or wheeled them off to their death camps. Then he moved on to undesirables, like half a
million gypsies, the homeless, the tramps.
Hitler decided who was unworthy of belonging to a great people, the
Aryans. He didn’t like Jehovah’s
Witnesses for no reason known; and he killed other Christians who spoke out and
protested. Two come to mind:
Dr Martin Niemoller, a theologian, had
a famous quote that he used to explain his boldness on speaking out against
Hitler:
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.
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
As you can see, we should care when anybody
was denied their civil rights, no matter if we agree with them. Niemoller escaped, and lived until 1984. Then there was Dr Dietrich Bonhoeffer, also a
theologian, who helped plot the failed assassination attempt on Hitler. But he was killed.
But Hitler eventually concentrated on the Jews. Several reasons have been suggested for his
changing his focus of hatred: Could it
have started because he obtained syphilis from his lover, a Jewish girl? Hitler willingly shared her with his
deplorable friends, so that possibility was his fault. Could he have read a famous fraudulent booklet,
which originated in Germany, called “The Protocols of the Ancient Elders of
Zion,” which speculated that the Jews had a secret conspiracy to take the whole
world over. Or was it because he, having
military aims, needed to unify the people by focusing on a common enemy that he
blamed for their troubles? The Jews
filled that need for a scapegoat well. Oh,
Germany had troubles, that led to chaos. Extreme hyperinflation wiped out the
value of savings for retirement, or anything else. That plus their high unemployment led to a
ripe situation for dictators. They had also
signed a humiliating treaty to end World War I, which forced them to pay reparations
to the world which they damaged. The Allies rubbed their noses in it, and they
sought revenge. (The Allies needed the
spirit of how Abraham Lincoln handled the South, not the spirit that pervaded
at the Versailles Treaty.) They were
forced to set up a democratic system, which was not in accord with their military
sense of blind obedience to leaders. Eventually they only had two choices for political
parties that changed: the extreme
left-wing Communists (which Hitler felt they were full of Jews), or the
right-wing fascists. The upper class people were reading Darwin, Karl Marx,
Freud, and Nietzsche too much as well (even though two of them were Jews); it
is said that Darwin banished God from nature, that Marx banished God from
history, and Freud banished God from the human soul. From these poisoned
sources, hey believed God did not care, and that life was an animalistic
struggle for dominance. And in their nationalism, they believed that the
superior Aryan working man was more honorable than the rich proletariats.
There were increasing outbursts of anti-Semitism; in Poland, in Russia
(which had its pogroms), even in France, where a Jewish military officer, Alfred
Dreyfus, was banished due to his spying.
But there was no evidence. His
fellow officer was the spy, but easily convinced people by planting the
evidence on him, a Jew. Interestingly,
that incident had a part in leading to the founding of the Jewish state of
Israel. Through all the previous
centuries, the Jews were persecuted in Europe on religious grounds—namely,
deicide, killing the Son of God. But that didn’t bother Hitler as much as their
race, which he considered inferior.
Pawson considers that
underlying all factors for their continuous persecution was the fact that they
were the chosen people of God, as Scripture said. And the majority of humanity is in rebellion
to God. BUT why should God allow His chosen people to
be persecuted and murdered? Why did He
abandon His people in their hour of deepest need, during the holocaust? Did He make it happen? Many Jews have been asking their rabbis, and
abandoning their faith, not getting an answer for this question. Some say it was reincarnation (or karma), for
the sins of the previous generations. Some
rabbis say, “we don’t understand God, He is mysterious, hidden. It’s not our
place to question God—He is sovereign.” There is nobility in that argument, but it is
not satisfying. A more realistic explanation
is, without the holocaust, there never would have been the state of Israel. And
the nation of Israel has a part to play in Scriptural prophecies of the end
times. In any event, the nations of the world
had an outpouring of compassion and guilt that seldom
happens; they granted something that never would have happened otherwise
(Hard to believe the racism of man, but between 1945 and 1948, the British were
transporting Jewish refugees to barbed-wire camps in Cyprus, and even sending
them back to Germany. The world has never really
accepted refugees, no matter how desperate their circumstances.
Here's the most
interesting answer floated to that question: Many rabbis quoted Isaiah 53,
about the suffering servant of God, and felt that in the holocaust, the
suffering Jews shed their blood, and were making atonement for the sins of God’s
people in the whole world. THAT seems
arrogant. But we know Isaiah 53 prophesies
Jesus shedding His blood for His people—but, of course, the Jews don’t believe
in Jesus, which is why they were under a curse.
Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus 26 lists most of the curses for
disobedience. Other chapters listed the
blessings for obedience. The Jews chose
the former. Interestingly, the two curse
chapters reads like a journalistic report of the holocaust. Here is a verse that shows a character about
God that you will never hear about; Deuteronomy 28:63 warns of a curse of
disobedience:
Just as it pleased the Lord to
make you prosper and increase in number, so it will
please him to ruin and destroy you.
The Jews defied God terribly from 900
BC on, when Solomon’s death led to his sons splitting the kingdom. They were defeated in war and oppressed
countless times, but there were some incidents really severe that stand out. They were massacred by Titus in 70 AD for
their part in the death of Christ, but that was a short-lived suffering. But it took til’ 1933 AD before God began administering
a severe punishment that killed six times as many as the beating they took from
the Romans, and it lasted 5 years in its greatest intensity. Mr. Pawson
believes that the holocaust was partially due to how the Jews who lived in
Germany forgot about God, and their connection to Him. They were assimilated, and lost their
identity, even their language (they spoke Yiddish in Germany). But God’s chosen people were to be different,
as we Christians are to be different from the world. If they had abided in Him, He would have
blessed them and they would be a wonderful evangel. But God had no use for His
people who wanted to be the same as the world.
God knew that wherever Jews assimilate, anti-Semitism rears its ugly
head. Besides, it was another slap in
the face and another defying their covenant they made with Him in Exodus. To get God’s feeling about that, read Ezekiel
20:32-33:
“You say, ‘We want to be like the nations, like
the peoples of the world…But what you have in mind will never happen. 33 As
surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I will reign
over you with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and with outpoured wrath.
There it is again, this thing about God’s anger you probably
never hear about. We should always read
Scripture with the focus being to know God.
It is stupid not to know what He wants, and pay the price for that
ignorance, as we see with the Jews. We can learn a lot about God treating His
people from the Old Testament.
Another dunderhead move by the Jews that probably added to
their punishment was the following: An
agnostic Jew, Theodor Herzl, got a prophecy (sent by God), and persistently bothered
all the Jewish influencers in all of Europe to seek their own land—oddly, he
did this in the 1890s! He tried to hold
a Zionist congress of Jewish leaders in Munich in 1896, since he could see
dangerous anti-Semitism on the horizon in Germany (this is why I claim it was a
prophecy). Would you believe, the German
Jews appealed to their authorities and got him banned from such a meeting? He
finally got It in Switzerland the next year, and later made a prediction that
the Jews would get their nation in 50 years’ time. (He was wrong by two months). Herzl got his original inspiration from his
anger over the Dreyfus incident. But the
nations remembered him later; he was a big reason they did get their country in
1948. Unfortunately he died in 1904. This incident proves that God will even work
with someone who doesn’t even believe in Him to keep His plan rolling. You have to believe God is in charge. I wish
my history teacher could have taught us like Pawson taught.
Last, let’s consider Warsaw Poland, which had the most
religious Jews left at the time (and there were not many overall). Why did the whole city become a ghetto, and why
did they get crushed in a futile battle with Nazi soldiers, if they were
religious? Well, because of their
embrace of religious tradition and rejection of God’s Word. They were supposed to be living under the Torah,
or the Pentateuch (the first 5 books of the Bible). Yes, there really were 613 commandments and
bylaws in those books (thank God for the New Testament). But Jewish law was allowed to become a
confusing mishmash of God’s laws and rabbi’s traditions, such as in the Mishnah
and Talmud. It was already going on in
Jesus’ day when He said, “you nullify the Word of God by your traditions.” (Matthew
15:6) But they ignored Him. The
legalistic tradition became burdensome; they didn’t like God. Synagogues still discuss more interpretation
of tradition than they do of their Holy Scripture. Sacrificial atonement for
sin, a heart of the gospel to the Jew, had been replaced by repentance. Righteousness
is an outward goal, not an inward one, as it should be. So the butchery of
Warsaw was God’s answer. He had used the
Philistines, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Midianites, the Edomites, now
the Nazis—to discipline His people. (That
does not excuse those other nations who He uses to discipline them.)
Thank God for His mercy in this: there was a limit to the sanctions of the
covenant; i.e., on how much God’s discipline would hurt. Any wrath outpoured would be temporary, first
of all. All the Old Testament prophets,
while talking of Israel’s sin, always put out a hope for the future. Secondly, God would never completely abandon
His people—sanctions would never be total. Look at Jeremiah 31:35-36:
This
is what the Lord says,
He
who appoints the sun to shine by day,
who decrees the moon and stars to shine by
night,
who stirs up the sea so that its waves
roar,
the Lord Almighty is his name:
36 ‘Only if these decrees vanish from my sight,’ declares
the Lord,
‘will
Israel ever cease being a nation before me
Unfortunately, Israel is now learning Western ways and
abandoning any sense of religion. They
have a higher percentage of agnostics than most nations. Few are orthodox, and
are looked upon as the Amish in America. They must blame God for all their
troubles, but if you read the Old Testament and what I’ve added above, the
blame begins with them. It is easy for
people to blame God for suffering. There
is much to be learned about God in this paper, and by reading the Old
Testament. Do not assume God has changed
His personality into a soft touch, like Grandpa God. Jesus talked more of hell than anyone or any
book of the Bible. Matthew 7:13-14 says
that only a FEW will reach life, or heaven.
The majority are headed for destruction, or hell. Many, who assume they are “good” for heaven,
will be shocked, on the day of judgment, to hear our Lord redirect them to
hell, as He warned in Matthew 7:21-23:
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he
who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord,
have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in
Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’
Are you sure you are doing God’s will? Do you definitely know God’s will that He is
speaking of here? I have other blogs on this, but I urge you to a rapid reading
through a red-letter Bible, and write the verses that speak of what pleases God’s
will. “I accept Jesus” is nowhere near a complete answer.
While Mr. Pawson does a great job pointing out reasons for
God’s allowing persecution of His people, we need to look at ourselves and
learn from this. If we have pain, or
grief, it is not always due to some gross sin that we did. Sometimes that’s true. But other times, we just have to accept that
in the sin-filled world, lives get messed up.
We learn patience. If we are
truly born again, hopefully we never lose our trust that God still loves us,
and brings us closer to Him. If our
lives were always roses, we would easily decide that we don’t need God—and forget
that His mercy in just letting us live is more than we deserve. We all deserve
hell, because our sins defy His holiness.
It is too easy to forget Him, and we are so easily drawn to the world,
and not in pleasing Him, which is where we should be. Let us show mercy to others, as He showed to
us. On a practical level, let us donate
to the less fortunate, let us not be so strict on immigration laws. Let us defend the unborn. Let us see ourselves as mistake-ridden like
the Jews, let us learn from them, and get determined to change our lives, going
His way, in His will.
No comments:
Post a Comment