For centuries, the rabbis have accused Jesus Christ of fomenting anti-Semitism by pointing to three scriptures in the New Testament where Christ referred to the Jews as the children of the devil who worshiped in the synagogue of Satan.
Is there any validity to their argument? Absolutely not. If Christ condemned all the Jews as the children of the devil, then He condemned Himself; His disciples and all the Jews who belonged to the early church in Jerusalem. Who was Christ referring to then? He was referring to those Jews who not only rejected Him as God's Messiah revealed by Israel's ancient prophets, but those who rebelled against God throughout history by violating His laws and commandments.
Here's what Christ said to a group of rebellious Jews who mocked Him while claiming to believe in God: "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now am here. I have not come on my own; but he sent me. Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me!" (John 8:42-45)
The Book of Revelation contains two quotes from Christ where He referred to certain Jews as members of the synagogue of Satan. To the church in Smyrna, He said this: "I know your afflictions and your poverty--yet you are rich! I know the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan." (Revelation 2:9)
And to the church in Philadelphia (Asia Minor), he said this: "I will make those who are of the synagogue of Satan, who claim to be Jews though they are not, but are liars--I will make them come and fall down at your feet and acknowledge that I have loved you." (Revelation 3:9)
Why did Christ use such harsh language against His own people? Because they were phonies who had sold out God for things such as money, wealth, pleasure, power and the false gods of pagan religions. A genuine Jew, as defined by the Bible, is someone who worships God and is obedient to His laws and commandments.
The apostle Paul--himself a Pharisee--wrote this: "A man is not a Jew if he is one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the (Holy) Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man's praise is not from men, but from God." (Romans 2:28-29)
According to Paul, a true Jew recognized by God is either a Jew or Gentile who has been born again through faith in Jesus Christ. Such a person is considered a "God-Praiser", which is what the Judeans, who belonged to the tribe of Judah were considered. In fact, the term Jew comes from Judean.
How then, can a person be considered a genuine Jew or a "God-Praiser" if he or she is either an atheist or rejects Christ as the Jewish Messiah? In fact, such a person isn't considered a Jew in God's eyes, and those are the phonies that Christ was referring to when he called them the children of the devil.
Certainly, most modern Jews reject Christ because of fear rather than unbelief. They realize that if they acknowledge Christ as the Messiah, they'll be persecuted and ostracized. Many Jews are convinced that Christ is the Jewish Messiah, but are too afraid to admit it. During the time of Christ, "many, even among the (religious) leaders believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they would not confess their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue. For they loved praise from men more than praise from God." (John 12:42-43)
Throughout history, two groups of Jews have existed; one group that remained loyal to God and the other group that rebelled against God by breaking His laws and violating His commandments. During the time of the ancient prophet Elijah, the Lord revealed that He had reserved a remnant of Jews that
He would protect throughout history. (1 Kings 19:18) Paul understood that, and revealed that contrary to the popular belief in his day, God would bring the Jews back to Him in the future through this remnant: "So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace." (Romans 10:5-6)
Who are those today who belong to the synagogue of Satan? They are those false Jews who are atheists; those who consistently side with Israel's enemies in the Muslim world or on the godless left, or those who are devoted to the religion of the rabbis and absolutely refuse to consider the evidence for Christ.
One such person is Noam Chomsky, a pseudo-intellectual who despises Israel and sides with the enemies of the Jewish state. Chomsky calls Israel an oppressive state that abuses human rights and needs to be eliminated from the group of world nations. Chomsky claims that the Palestinians living in the "Occupied Territories" are experiencing similar conditions that blacks suffered under South Africa's apartheid regime many years ago.
Said Chomsky: "They (Israel) don't want them. They want them out, or at least in prison. And they're acting that way. That's a very striking difference, which means that the apartheid analogy, South African apartheid, to the Occupied Territories is just a gift to Israeli violence. It's much worse than that. If you look inside Israel, there's plenty of repression and discrimination. I've written about it extensively for decades." http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2014/8/8/noam_chomsky
For the record, the Palestinians are the ones who are occupying land that doesn't belong to them. http://prophecyreviewtoday.blogspot.com/2015/03/israel-jews-and-world Secondly, those Palestinians living in squalid conditions are suffering because the Palestinian Authority uses them as human pawns in its propaganda campaign against Israel.
The P.A. has received hundreds of millions of dollars in aid from world nations throughout the years to improve the lives of its people. But instead, much of the money has either been used to purchase weapons to kill Jews or has landed in offshore bank accounts. That's a well-known fact that Chomsky and his fellow Israel-hating Jews always fail to acknowledge.
Self-hating Jews, or members of the synagogue of Satan aren't a recent phenomenon. In the late 19th century, Theodore Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, was fiercely condemned by many Jews after he proposed the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. Herzl disgustingly referred to those Jews as "disguised anti-Semites of Jewish origin."
More recently, Christian Jews, or Messianic Jews as they prefer to call themselves, have been threatened and harassed in Israel simply for embracing Christ and rejecting Rabbinic Judaism. From ynetnews.com: "Safety pins and screws are still lodged in 15-year-old Ami Ortiz's body three months after he opened a booby-trapped gift basket sent to his family. The explosion damaged his hearing and harmed a promising basketball career. Police say they are still searching for the assailants. But to the Ortiz family, the motive for the attack is clear: The Ortizes are Jews who believe that Jesus is the Messiah."
Though the Ortiz family believes that the bomb was sent by Ultra-Orthodox Jews who despise Christians and possess a murderous hatred for Jews who follow Christ, they're not confidant that the police will catch the perpetrators because the Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox Jews frequently get a free pass when they target Christians and Messianics for abuse. Messianic churches have increasingly been vandalized and even fire-bombed in Israel, and Jews who openly profess their faith in Christ have been verbally harassed and even threatened with death.
That hatred goes back to the time of Christ when the early church, that consisted mostly of Jews, was routinely persecuted by the Pharisees and Sadducees. Ancient Israel's religious leaders had sold themselves to Rome and turned their backs on Christ to bow down to Caesar. When the Jews demanded that Pontius Pilate sentence Christ to death, the chief priests said this: "We have no king but Caesar." (John 19:15)
It was those rebellious Jews who scorned Christ and mocked God that have brought misery upon their descendants to this day. The ancient prophet Jeremiah, who lived about 500 years before Christ appeared in the world, recorded these words from the Lord concerning those Jews who chose to remain loyal to Him: "My eyes will watch over them for their good, and I will bring them back to this land (Israel). I will build them up and not tear them down; I will plant them and not uproot them. I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord. They will be my people and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart." (Jeremiah 24:6-7)
And then Jeremiah recorded these words from the Lord concerning those who continued in their rebellion against Him despite His warnings: "I will make them abhorrent and an offense to all the kingdoms of the earth, a reproach and a byword, an object of ridicule and cursing, wherever I banish them. I will send the sword, famine and plague against them until they are destroyed from the land I gave to them and their fathers." (Jeremiah 24:9-10)
Indeed, the Lord has fulfilled His word to both groups--the genuine Jews and the false Jews who are a synagogue of Satan. To the genuine Jews, He has shielded them from disaster in the world despite the virulent hatred directed against them. They are the ones who are coming to Christ in the last days as the fulfillment of the ancient prophecies (Hosea 3:4-5, Romans 11:25-32) that foretold the return of the Jews to the Lord.
And the Lord has fulfilled His word by putting a curse on those false Jews who betrayed Him even long before Christ entered the world. Who are some of these wretches? They are Noam Chomsky, George Soros, Saul Alinsky, Jan Schakowsky and millions of others who are members of the synagogue of Satan. They may be called by many names, but they cannot be called genuine Jews.
No comments:
Post a Comment