Antisemitism ,storm clouds, and the battle for our nations.

What we are witnessing in the world at large is an alarming and seismic shift of aggressive and demonstrative antisemitism.

In Western Europe that growing trend has continued largely unreported by the mainstream media for at least a decade or more, but it seems that the events of Oct 7th, when 1,400 unsuspecting Israelis were slaughtered, has quite literally opened across the nations a gate of hell, in a rage of anti-Jewish hatred.

In a massacre that was reminiscent of the holocaust inflicted by the nazis during the second world war, that which should have elicited a unified international response of unqualified support for Israel, instead quickly became the premise for the display of hatred towards the Jews erupting across the world.

In my own country of Britain, this weekend prior witnessed a gathering of between 300,400 thousand protesters declaring their condemnation of Israel (in its response to tackle Hamas on their own turf of the Gaza Strip) and chanting "death to the Jews".

Why is this exploding across the world? Does it signal something more ominous to come? And what should the biblical response be, for us as Christians? These are some of the questions I want to address in this article.

Firstly we must remember that antisemitism is not new but one of the most persistent forms of hatred and yes, of true racism that has existed ever since Israel became a distinctive people.

For thousands of years, they have been harried, harassed, and displaced, either by invading nations who surrounded them or by the people among whom they sought to dwell peacefully.

In the history of the church, antisemitism began early on and has continued unabated for two millennia. The roots of this hatred of the Jewish people are varied and pernicious but we could point to the writings of Hippolytus of Rome as an example, who was a significant theological voice in the third century.

In his "Expository Treatise against the Jews," he argued that because of their "Collective guilt" for killing Jesus, they have been as a people, race, and nation eternally damned and cut off from God.

Even though such a claim to attempt to single out the Jewish people as carrying particular guilt above any other race or people, rather than affirming that it was for the sin of all humanity Christ went to the cross,is an unbiblical one, nevertheless the accusation seemed to stick and led, inevitably to justifying all manner of atrocities being committed against the Jews.

After all, if the Jews are the particular focus of God's displeasure then any act of barbarity against them must be seen as doing God's work here on earth. Such twisted and perverse notions gave rise to literally centuries of brutality being committed against the Jews all the while being justified in the eyes of the perpetrators of those crimes. Today when the Islamic rage that is being poured out towards the Jewish people is expressed in the chant "from the river to the sea", meaning exterminate the entire nation of Israel and wipe her off the face of the earth, it is a religious, albeit Islamic religious zeal that motivates them.

As one of the sons of the founder of the terrorist organization Hamas, Mosab Hassan Yousef(who is now trying to enlighten the West to the true nature of this ideological evil even though it is largely falling upon deaf ears) has repeatedly stated, Hamas is fueled by religious ideological hatred, it goals are framed in a perverse notion that to kill a jew is to perform an act pleasing to God.

When almost a thousand years later after Hippolytus, Pope Innocent III wrote that it is precisely because of their "own guilt" that the Jews are consigned to perpetual servitude being as they crucified the Lord, he was extenuating the same lie, that of an exceptionalism of Jewish guiltliness for the death of Jesus that required exceptional punishment.

The scriptures are clear that it is all of our sin and guilt as Adam's fallen race that nailed Christ to the cross, therefore He came to redeem people from every tribe and race and kindred and people by his blood because we all stand as fallen and guilty rebels before a just and holy God.

This perverse doctrine inevitably led to the unleashing of a brutal genocidal hatred towards the Jews during the Middle Ages, in episode after episode, including the destruction of 140 Jewish communities and the killing of over 100,000 Jews in Bavaria in the late thirteen hundreds or the burning of Jews alive as they were trapped in their synagogue in Jerusalem in the eleventh-century crusades, as their tormentors sang a Christian hymn over the voices of those screaming for mercy trapped inside, to name but a couple of examples.

Such incidents may be unsavory and distressing to recall but history as one has so wisely stated must be studied to learn its lessons well lest we be doomed to repeat the same failures again and again.

Centuries later when the German reformer Martin Luther who was a towering figure in the protestant church penned his shameful treatise entitled, "The Jews and their Lies", he wrote in the most hateful of language of the Jewish people being damned and rejected by God, suggesting to his readers that the duty of the German church was "to prayerfully and reverentially practice a merciful severity" against them.

Again this pernicious notion continued that if the Jews are particularly guilty before God more than any other race they are worthy of greater punishment.

Luther's suggestions for his own proposal of "a merciful severity" were anything but displaying God's mercy. Rather Christians were, he suggested, to set their synagogues on fire and destroy their homes ban their assemblies confisicate their prayer books, and even restrict their freedom of movement and travel.

Luther's stature and place of influence across not just Germany but much of Europe inevitably led to him being responsible for the carrying out of many of these atrocities.

Centuries later it would be the writings of Luther that informed and emboldened the warped and twisted ideology of hatred towards the Jews in the mind of Adolf Hitler and the rest, as they say, is history.

Initially, Hitler also believed that he was acting in the name of "God and a German higher morality" by cleansing the land of the influence of the Jews, carrying on the perpetuating myth of exceptional Jewish guilt requiring a greater divine retribution against them.

Today as Jews across the world are trying to come to terms with this seemingly overnight explosion of violent raging antisemitism and how they should respond to it for their own personal safety, they know as we in our historical illiteracy in the west are apt to forget that this kind of hatred is almost always a portent to something infinitely more sinister to come.

They simply cannot afford to be complacent and neither should we in the church in our stance to stand with them in their sufferings.

As Christians what should our response be biblically towards Israel, how should we respond to Jews at this time of global rising antisemitism? And last but not least where does this current wave of hatred towards the Jews likely end?

The tragedy of the long history of persecution against the Jews from those within the church is that it is another example of when man's ideas and man's doctrines are exalted and imposed over the clear teaching of the word of God.

Paul's writing in Romans 11 begins by asking a rhetorical question, "Has God rejected His people?" to which he gives the emphatic response "By no means!"

The original language is far stronger we could say "God forbid."

Paul is saying, No, God forbid, that He should cast off His people whom he has chosen, and then he proceeds to build the case for God's continued faithfulness to call out a remnant among the Jewish nation who will have eyes to see and hearts open to recognize their Messiah has come in the Lord Jesus Christ throughout the history of the church.

"So too at the present time, there is a remnant chosen by grace" vs 6

"What Israel sought so earnestly it did not obtain, but the elect did. The others were hardened".vs7

"Again I say did they stumble as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all, or may it never be!" vs 12

God has been faithful to preserve and sustain His people the Jewish people, down throughout the centuries to preserve them and keep them alive. He has not abandoned them or forsaken them.

Throughout the centuries He has called out a people to Himself from the Jewish people a remnant of those who have come to see and to believe and to put their trust and hope in Christ.

The chapter ends with a clear exhortation from the apostle,

"I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited. Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written, the deliverer will come from Zion he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob and this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.( Isa 59 20-21)

As far as the gospel is concerned they are enemies on your account, but as far as election is concerned they are beloved on account of the fathers for God's gifts and his call are irrevocable."

We are exhorted as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ who have become the recipients of God's great mercy and have experienced His salvation by the grace of God when we believed, not to become conceited or vain because of an ignorance of what Paul describes as "this mystery", that is the purpose of God to allow for a season and for a time a part of the Jewish people to be unable to see or to behold the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, not so that they may be rejected forever but in order that we who are not Jews may enter into this salvation.

This is not in any way to elevate Israel or the Jewish people to a kind of "super status" or racial superiority which is a form of racism in itself, it is not to elevate one nation above another in a kind of pecking order. Rather in this chapter, Paul is unveiling a mystery, a divine plan that had been hidden but which is now in this age being playing out that there is an order and a timing regarding the salvation of the Jews first(and any proselytes who joined themselves to them in the faith) in the old testament, so now there is a predominant gathering in of the gentiles to the faith a grafting in of the wild olive vine to the tree of salvation which is Christ, which will include an elect number of Jewish people. However, at the end of this present age, God is going to once more favor and mightily visit His people again and all Israel will be saved.

Paul even quotes a beautiful promise/prophecy from Isiah 59 which he says will be fully accomplished only when God has visited the Jewish nation once more and fulfilled His covenant promise to them to turn them back to Him away from ungodliness and to take away their sins.

Zechariah also speaks of a time in the future when those dwelling in Jerusalem will look on the One they have pierced and mourn and grieve for Him, indicating a nationwide repentance movement when the Holy Spirit is massively poured out upon a chastened and refined through the fire remnant of Jews living in Jerusalem when the Lord returns again. Zechariah 12,13

When Jesus returns again He will return to rule with a rod of iron from the throne of David in the city of Jerusalem surrounded by his redeemed Jewish brethren, not just from an ethereal heavenly throne in the clouds.

Make no mistake about it Israel has a glorious future,(as well as a time of future unprecedented suffering)but God has not and never will cast her away.

The one repeated exhortation that is given to gentile believers again and again is not to be haughty or arrogant, and this it seems to me is the one thing that we have repeatedly failed to listen to and obey.

Our attitude towards Israel should be one of gratitude before God for all that she has given to us, as well as a cry of intercession for her to enter into the fullness of her salvation which God has purposed for her through Christ.

Where do I believe that this current wave of antisemitism is going and what should our response be?

The speed and rapidity of the anti-Jewish feeling which is being voiced openly upon our streets should be perceived for the danger that it represents.

When our home secretary was sacked earlier this week by our prime minister she expressed among other concerns, in an open letter to our prime minister, her frustrations with the lack of decisive and robust leadership that our present government is demonstrating in seeking to quell these hateful marches. I quote from her letter,

"I have become hoarse urging you to consider legislation to ban the hate marches and help stem the rising tide of racism, intimidation, and terrorist glorification threatening community cohesion.

Britain is at a turning point in our history and faces a threat of radicalization and extremism in a way not seen for 20 years. I regret to say that your response has been uncertain, weak, and lacking in the qualities of leadership that this country needs. Rather than acknowledge the severity of this threat, your team disagreed with me for weeks that the law needed changing."

Our former home secretary is correct to state that this current wave of antisemitic protests represents a serious threat and requires a robust response.

Anyone who has studied history and the rise of antisemitism under the nazi party will also know that Hitler did not arrive at his so-called "final solution" overnight. It represented the inevitable destination that came from all the unchecked, unbridled unrestrained dehumanizing and persecution of the Jews living in Germany over a period of several years.

One of the more chilling lessons from the pages of history was the notorious night called Kristallnacht, when antisemitism across Germany reached a more sinister level, or the night of the broken glass when a new wave of hatred and persecution resulted in the destruction of 7000 Jewish businesses(whose windows were smashed thus the name of broken glass) Rioters destroyed 267 Jewish synagogues across Germany Austria and the Sudetenland. Jewish homes, hospitals, and schools were ransacked, as rioters attacked buildings with sledgehammers.30,000 Jewish men were arrested and incarcerated in concentration camps.

The most chilling aspect of this monstrous event of history was the scene reported by a British journalist, Hugh Green, writing for the Daily Telegraph, who said,

"Mob law ruled throughout the afternoon and evening and hordes of hooligans indulged in an orgy of destruction. I have seen several anti-Jewish outbreaks in Germany during the last five years, but never anything as nauseating as this. Racial hatred and hysteria seem to have taken complete hold of otherwise decent people. I saw fashionably dressed women clapping their hands and screaming with glee, while respectable middle-class mothers, held up their babies to see "the fun"."

The Jewish communities living in our countries are right to be concerned, we should all be concerned, for as the history of antisemitism has proven once the pandora's box of unchecked anti-Jewish protests and demonstrations is opened it quickly escalates to a far darker place.

What should our response be as believers living to witness these scenes in our own nations?

Firstly I would say that we should soberly reflect upon the fact that we do have a responsibility before God, to be salt and light, and for Spirit-filled believers who are given to prayer to be watchmen upon the walls. We cannot be passive and simply watch but not engage.

That engagement may take many forms, from befriending and expressing our support for Jewish people living in our communities(who must be rightly very concerned at the developments they are witnessing)

We can give practically financially to the plethora of organizations supporting the effort to provide relief for the civilians caught up in this war.

We can speak up against the outpouring of hatred towards the Jews and the oftentimes drastically biased reporting from our mainstream media channels that continue to stoke the fuel of anti-Jewish sentiment.

We can however most of all pray. Prayer is our greatest weapon.

We must cry out to God for moral clarity and for courage to be given to our political leaders, for many courageous voices to be raised against the flow.

We must pray for the restraining of lawlessness and anarchy from escalating further upon our streets, for that which the enemy meant for evil to be turned for greater good.

We should pray for the protection of Jewish people in our nations living in communities that have seen these racially motivated protests escalating.

There is a saying first they came for the Jewish people then for the rest of us.

That is so true. The leaders of the Iranian military have stated their intention to die in the cause of global Jihad and bringing death to the infidels across the world. After Israel, they will surely come for the West.

In Germany, once Hitler had begun the bloodletting of the Jewish population he turned his attention towards the church. Pastors and priests who resisted his aggressive form of nationalism were rounded up and imprisoned or executed. In the state, Lutheran churches the crosses were taken down and replaced with swastikas Bibles were removed and replaced with copies of mien kampf, and faithful priests were replaced by stooges of the state who would preach weekly sermons of their party propaganda.

This is not to inspire fear it is to awaken us to seek the Lord with all of our hearts as never before, to pray for a great outpouring, a great harvest of souls which I believe we are going to see.

I agree with Mike Bickle when he said that the Lord had spoken to him many years ago concerning His intention to change the understanding and expression of Christianity in a single generation.

I absolutely agree. We desperately need to see a new wineskin, a radically different church arise in these times, and it is also my firm conviction that it is only the recovery of the true Apostolic and Prophetic functioning in the church that is going to lead us in the right direction.

We need to see the arising of a people as a lovesick, warrior bride, a radiant bride among whom the weight of the glorious presence of God resides and through whom His light and glory and Divine authority will be manifested to counter the deep darkness surrounding us at this present time.

Does that sound like a flight of fancy, or idealism off the charts? I don't think so, and what I do know is that we are going to have to see the church changing and rising to the challenge of this moral darkness that is beginning to consume our societies in the West if we are to be a voice that is listened to, a witness that is seen, and an instrument to bring deliverance to the lost and captives of this generation.

May the Lord help each one of us, in spite of our weaknesses to ask Him to make us what He would have us to be. Amen