Just as it is a lie of Satan there will be a Rapture of the Church, and just as it is a lie of Satan that the Antichrist will also be Jewish because the Lord Jesus Christ was Jewish, it is also a another lie of Satan to believe that the Jews Are Gods chosen people and are entitled to illegally occupy the Holy Land as their God given right.
By Harry Bethell
NOTICE: This writer does not advocate illegal discrimination or racism or violation of civil rights of Jews or any other group. This article is NOT anti-Semitic. Christians should love the Jews and pray for them.
It is a lie from Satan that Jews are God's chosen people and many pastors embrace and teach Satan's lie that Christians should support the State of Israel (Zionism). Also, another lie from Satan is the teaching that God blesses those who bless Israel and He curses those who curse them, that has not been true for more than 1900 years.
Jews claim to be God's chosen people, but they were His chosen people. Only the elect of the Jews (which is an extremely small minority) will be saved.
Jesus Christ, who is God incarnate, pronounced judgment on the Jews for rejecting Him:
The Jews generally rejected Jesus, the true Messiah, therefore Jesus cursed the fig tree, which represents Israel, saying, "May you never bear fruit again!" (Mat. 21:18).
When the Jewish chief priests and elders questioned Jesus' authority He said to them, "I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people [Gentiles] who will produce its fruit" (Mat. 21:43).
When Jesus told a parable to the Jewish chief priests, scribes, and elders (Lk. 20:19), they knew He was talking about them when He said that the vine-growers, to whom the owner had sent his son, killed his son. Then in the parable Jesus asked what will the owner of the vineyard do to those who killed his son, to which He said, "He will come and destroy these vine-growers [Jews] and will give the vineyard to others [Gentiles]."
After hearing this and knowing that Jesus was talking about them, those Jews "tried to lay hands on Him that very hour...and they watched Him, and sent spies who pretended to be righteous, in order that they might catch Him in some statement, so as to deliver Him up to the rule and the authority of the governor" (Lk. 20:9-20).
A loving, longsuffering and merciful God sent Jesus to "His own [the Jews], and His own received Him not" (John 1:11). The reason that the Jewish prophet John (the Baptizer) came baptizing with water was to reveal Jesus to Israel (John 1:31). And Jesus said that He was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel (Mat. 15:24).
Near the end of Jesus' earthly ministry Jesus said, 'O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. (Mat. 23:37-38).
Paul quoted Isaiah in his epistle to the Christians in Rome, "Concerning Israel he [Isaiah] says, 'All day long I [God] have held out My hands to a disobedient and obstinate people [the Jews]'" (Rom. 10:21).
After the apostle Paul had preached the Gospel to Jews in cities throughout Asia and was, for the most part, rejected by them, he turned to the Gentiles and ministered to them.
Near the end of Paul's ministry, when he was in Rome under house arrest, he spoke to a large gathering of Jews. Paul explained and declared to them the kingdom of God and tried to convince them about Jesus from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets.
The great apostle concluded his sermon by saying, "The Holy Spirit spoke the truth to your [Jewish] forefathers when He said through Isaiah the prophet: 'Go to this people and say, 'You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people's heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn and I would heal [save] them.' Therefore I want you to know that God's salvation has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will listen" (Acts 28:17-28).
When the Jews cried out over and over to crucify Jesus, and Pilate wanted to release Him, all the Jews said, "Let His blood be on us and on our children!" (Mat. 27:25).
Jesus prophesied God's destruction of Jerusalem that would take place in 70 A.D. at the hands of the Roman general Titus (Mat. 24:1-2; Lk. 19:41-44). According to Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian, more than 1,000,000 Jews died when Jerusalem was laid siege to and destroyed as Jesus had prophesied 40 years earlier.
That horrific suffering was second only to the suffering of the twentieth century Holocaust under Hitler. This was because of the general rejection of Christ by the Jews, and until this day they still reject Jesus Christ as the Messiah and Savior and the only way to heaven.
Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man [including Jews] cometh unto the Father, but by Me" (Jn. 14:6). There are very few Jews today who will repent of their sins and be born again and receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and only way to God to Father.
In 614 A.D. the Persians captured Jerusalem and massacred the inhabitants. The so-called "Christian" Crusaders captured Jerusalem in 1099. Several times since then Jerusalem has fallen into the hands of Moslems and "Christians." There is no reason to believe that the Crusaders were truly born-again Christians, anymore than the vast majority of Roman Catholics.
The Jews have continued to reject Christ throughout the centuries and the last great slaughter of Jews was during the Holocaust. It is claimed that six million Jews were killed in a few short years under the hand of Hitler (the number is probably exaggerated). (Also killed were Christ-rejecting Gypsies, homosexuals, and a few others.) All of this mass-killing took place as a sovereign and just God looked on.
Paul in Romans 9:27 referred to Isaiah when he wrote, "Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, [only] a remnant shall be saved."
The apostle Paul (a born-again Jew) said that the minds of the Jews have been made dull and to this day a "veil" covers their hearts when the Old Covenant is read, and only in Christ is it taken away (2 Cor. 3:14-16).
Paul wrote concerning the Jews, "You who brag about the Law, do you dishonor God by breaking the Law?
As it is written: 'God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you'" (Rom. 2:23-24).
Justin Martyr, in 116 A.D. wrote, "The Jews were behind all the persecutions of the Christians. They wandered through the country everywhere hating and undermining the Christian faith."
Albert Einstein, a Jew, and an atheist said in a letter to philosopher Eric Gutkind dated 1/3/1954 that Jews were not God's chosen people. The renowned physicist wrote, "For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions." Einstein said, "And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people." He wrote, "The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish."
Concerning the Jews Einstein wrote, "As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups...I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them."
President Harry S. Truman wrote in his diary on 7/21/1947, "The Jews, I find, are very, very selfish...[W]hen they have power, physical, financial or political neither Hitler nor Stalin has anything on them for cruelty or mistreatment of the underdog."
Reportedly, in 1977 Israel passed a law that prohibits anyone, including Christians, from leading the Jews to change their religion.
What should be the attitude of Christians toward Christ-rejecting Jews?
Christians should love the Jews just as we should love the heathen in Africa. Paul wrote that "all Israel shall be saved" (Rom. 11:26), but the apostle also wrote that "though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, [only] a remnant shall be saved" (Rom. 9:27).
All true Israel is only a remnant. During the Great Tribulation 144,000 Jews will be saved, but this is only a small remnant compared to the millions of Jews living today. The Christ-rejecting Jews are no different than anyone else who has not repented of their sins and been born again. Pray for the Jews, love them, ask God to have mercy on them, and share the true Gospel with those who will listen.
