The Jewish Final Solution to the World's Problem - The Woes of the Jews Worldwide, Part IV

[0:00] to one of Paul's writings, to Romans. Please turn to Romans chapter 9. And there in chapter 9 we'll be looking at verses 1 through 5.

[0:26] I am telling the truth in Christ. I am not lying. My conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart.

[0:45] For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the law and the temple service and the promises, whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever.

[1:26] Amen. Well, in a very unquestionable and straightforward kind of way, the Apostle Paul has buried his own heart regarding his attitude and his desire for his countrymen, his fellow Jewish people, and to the effect of being persecuted himself, with the result of being persecuted himself and experiencing enormous deprivation, he was a man who was willing to spend and be spent in order to communicate the truth of Jesus Christ not only to the Jews, but to the Gentiles.

[2:16] Paul the Apostle not only was a Jew, he was a Jew lover. Grace Bible Church, myself in particular, has been described by some in the community as lovers of Jews.

[2:32] I guess that's because we are. We are also lovers of Arabs and lovers of Muslims, lovers of Gentiles in general.

[2:48] That's what we're supposed to be. We are not supposed to be selective in our love. We are to mimic our Creator, of whom it is said, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.

[3:07] That's a love that most of us will never really understand or know that much about. But that's the kind of love that was extended toward us in that he was willing to give his own Son.

[3:21] And the Apostle Paul, who himself was originally an avid hater of Jesus Christ and those who followed him, had taken upon himself to do whatever he could to stamp out these people.

[3:42] He saw them as a cancer growing on the religion of Judaism. And these people need to be eliminated. In a very real way, in a very real way, I guess we could say that Saul of Tarsus was an original Gestapo agent.

[4:08] He was one who was accustomed to breaking into people's houses in the middle of the night and hauling them off to jail and to prisons without any kind of a trial or anything like that.

[4:23] That's what he was given to. It was an intense hatred. And this morning we're going to look at this subject of hatred and persecution and how it is active and ugly in our world today.

[4:39] It always has been. It always has been. But today it's taken on an intensification and it is coming from several different sectors but probably none so pronounced as the radical community of Islam as was evidenced with the massacre yesterday in France.

[4:58] Someone has said that this was France's 9-11. Ours was in New York. Ours was in Paris. All things being equal we can expect more strikes like this.

[5:13] They are predicated upon an abject hatred for anyone and everyone who is not Islamic or who will not embrace Islam and we are all viewed by them as infidels.

[5:27] An infidel is a person without faith. Not only a person without faith but a person without the Muslim faith. If you are a radical Muslim you see anyone who is not a Muslim as an infidel and that means you are not worthy to live unless you are willing to convert to Islam.

[5:50] It is a belief that simply has no has no room at all for personal conscience or the violation thereof.

[6:04] So Saul of Tarsus was given to this kind of behavior and it was only through a dramatic intervention by none other than the risen Christ himself that was able to turn Saul of Tarsus into Paul the Apostle so that he then began preaching the faith that he once sought to destroy.

[6:28] what could possibly account for such a radical reversal as that? I can promise you this you cannot accomplish that on a psychiatric couch.

[6:40] It was a miraculous direct divine intervention by the risen Christ who confronted him on that road to Damascus and brought him to himself and as a result the Apostle Paul said I who am less than least of all the Apostles to me is this grace given that I should preach among Christ preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ I who am less than the least of all the Apostles to me is this grace given he never got over being a recipient of God's grace because he knew what he deserved and he knew what he got and he was forever grateful time would come when he would be miraculously delivered by God because his task on earth was not finished but when his task on earth was finished he would not be delivered he would be in the

[7:41] Mamertine prison in Rome and one morning probably the next day after he wrote his last letter wrote it to Timothy his protege and said the time has come my departure is at hand I fought a good fight I've kept the faith henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord will give me at that day not only to me also but to all those who love his appearing he's ready to be poured out like a drink offering and early that next morning there would be a knock on Paul's prison door and the executioner would be standing there and saying Paul it's your time and he would be escorted out of that prison into a nearby prison yard where we are told there was a small clump of trees and there the apostle

[8:44] Paul would bear his neck on a block and have his head severed from his body as a martyr of the Christian church and there would be no miraculous deliverance from that like there had been for some other occasions and why was that simply because in the greater scheme of things God knew that Paul's ministry on earth was finished and you are indestructible until God is finished with you and when he's finished with you you're going as I've said it doesn't make any difference how good the doctors are you're still going but until that time we are all given a mission to fulfill and if you don't know what yours is you ought to make it your number one objective to find out because nothing else matters someone quoted several years ago

[9:44] I don't recall exactly who it was but the quote really stuck in my mind if there is no God nothing matters but if there is a God nothing else matters you ought to ponder that it's a very serious statement very sobering and very enlightening too well we are talking about the plight of the Jew and we are called upon not only to love the Jew but to love everyone and the reason for that is simple and yes by the way that means to love even the unlovely and that means to love even those who perpetrated the 9-11 attacks and someone asked me by the way I was preaching in a series on forgiveness and we were talking about 9-11 and the radical extremist who flew those planes into the

[10:52] Twin Towers and I was asked you mean to tell me that we're supposed to forgive those people and you know we are but there is always a condition we are to forgive like God forgives and God forgives only on one basis and this we really need to know and understand God forgives only on the basis of repentance God forgives only on the basis of our acknowledging admitting confessing owning up to our sin and our being a rebel against him and if we will repent if we will change our mind regarding our sin and embrace Jesus Christ God will forgive it's part of his job description he has to because he has obligated himself to do that and he cannot break his word if we confess our sin he is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness but confessing our sin means we have to do business with it we have to admit it we have to acknowledge it

[12:16] God loves reality because he is a God of reality and when we admit that we are what we are and own up to it God reaches out with outstretched arms to receive and forgive us and to take us unto himself that is incredible that is the love and mercy of God and I mean even the vilest offender who truly believes that moment from Jesus a pardon receives the hymn writer put it so well but it is all predicated upon our acknowledging our sin it's amazing when we do it's amazing grace so yes God can and will forgive even those who do heinous things such as Saul of Tarsus when he persecuted and put to death innocent people who were guilty of nothing but loving and believing in

[13:20] Jesus Christ and God forgave him God can and will forgive anybody but they have to meet that one condition someone has said God will forgive you of your sin but he will not forgive you with your sin you have to bring that to him and he forgives and takes it away amazing got some unpleasant stuff to talk about in addition to what we've already talked about and this is in part three of the handout we gave you last week that I trust most of you got if you didn't please pick up a copy on your way out and do make sure if you will to get all four issues there are parts one through four and they are authored by James showers following or what has gone before let me just reiterate a couple of things because this is so very important the

[14:20] Jewish people today well not just for today but for centuries the Jewish people have had a great fear of and distrust of anything and everything that is called Christian and for good reason if you don't know what those reasons are now you will before you leave here Christianity is held by most Jews worldwide as something to be avoided at all costs and any Jew at least in an Orthodox family any Jew who converts to Christianity is considered by that Orthodox family to be dead literally dead they take them as literally dead they even hold a funeral service for them and in the family the name of that individual is never to be uttered again they regard conversion to

[15:34] Christianity now I'm not talking about all Jewish people but I am talking about those of the Orthodox faith the more strict Jews they regard one of their number who converts to Christianity as being the ultimate example of betrayal of your own family and your own kin and their thinking is how could you possibly do such a thing don't you understand what has been done to the Jewish people by Christians for centuries don't you know how could you possibly go over to that side I do not think there is any greater area of misunderstanding and misinterpretation that exists anywhere than that which is in the mind of the Jew toward Christians but let me add they have very good reason to feel that way we ought not to fault them for their convictions bear with me while I share some of this from part three on the black sheep of

[16:50] Christendom replacement theology until the fourth century Christianity was illegal in the Roman Empire now what does that mean that simply means that Christians were on the receiving end of persecution in the Roman Empire and the reason they were was because they would not ascribe allegiance to Caesar and if they were willing to do that then they could be spared but Christians with convictions were of the conviction that Jesus Christ is Lord and the word Lord means the one above whom and beyond whom there is none other Lord conveyed the idea of ultimate authority but the Romans regarded Caesar as Lord Christians would not accommodate that thinking they insisted that

[17:54] Jesus is Lord if they would just utter two words they would be unmolested all they had to do to any Roman official was say Caesar is Lord two words two words would get you your freedom okay you're free to go but if you wouldn't say it you would be subject to whatever they deemed appropriate and that could even mean your death Christians insisted that Jesus Jesus is Lord and for that they were persecuted so keep that in mind until the fourth century Christianity was illegal in the Roman Empire although replacement theology had overtaken the church and metastasized into anti-Semitism the church had no authority to do anything other than speak against the

[18:57] Jewish people all that changed in A.D. 313 and the catalyst was a ruler named Constantine now let me briefly explain what replacement theology is for the benefit of you who may not have heard the idea of replacement theology is that whereas the Jewish people were at one time the chosen people of God they no longer are because they were instrumental in the crucifixion of their own Messiah God has cast them off entirely and permanently so he has no more dealings of any kind with the Jewish nation and everything that was originally promised to the Jewish people has been transferred to the church the Christian church so in their thinking the church has replaced

[20:03] Israel as the chosen people of God hence the term replacement theology some refer to it as supersessionism that the church has superseded Israel and that whereas they were once the chosen people of God they no longer are and many Christians particularly in the early centuries charged the Jewish people with deicide we know what deicide is deicide means the murder of the deity they were charged with killing God God was in Christ God was God's son was Jesus Christ he was deity he was God in the flesh and the Jewish people were instrumental in killing him so they were charged with deicide the killing of the deity and because in the minds of many of those who embraced

[21:10] Christianity they saw the Jewish people as under the curse of God under the disfavor of God and if they are under God's disfavor we ought to act out whatever it is that would be detrimental to the Jews hence that included persecution and in some cases even death it was it was humanity's way of punishing the Jew for their part in the crucifixion of Christ and it was not only looked upon as acceptable it was considered by many to be an obligation you owe it to God to persecute the Jew and that reminds me of a verse of scripture that Jesus gave to his disciples the night he was betrayed he said the time is coming when those who kill you will think they are doing

[22:14] God a service you know that's been going on for thousands of years you know it's going on right now what do you think these people meant when they crashed those 747s into the twin towers with their comments picked up on the radio received at the airports Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar it means God is great that's the Muslim way of acknowledging the deity and ascribing greatness to God and in doing what they're doing they really believe God not only requires that of them but God will bless them for it and God will reward them for it and you've all heard the 42 virgins and the paradise and all the rest of that that goes with it now we may look upon that as foolish and say well that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard but you see all that matters is that they believed it and they did and that's why they acted upon it because beliefs are important every time

[23:26] I hear somebody say something like this and I do it just makes me cringe and I cannot help but challenge them when they say something like it doesn't make any difference what you believe what a crock what a crock doesn't make any difference what you believe how could anybody be be halfway thinking and make a statement like that it makes all the difference in the world what you believe because you tend to act out of your beliefs your beliefs formulate your attitudes and your attitudes determine your actions it makes a lot of difference what you believe makes all the difference in the world don't ever let that challenge go by unchallenged when somebody says I don't think it makes any difference what you believe and I hear that all the time and it's just addle brain thinking and people need to be called out on it makes a lot of difference well young

[24:28] Constantine a member of Emperor Diocletian's court was preparing to lead his troops at the battle of Milvian Bridge in AD 312 when he claimed to have had a vision of a cross and the sun I can't ascribe any legitimacy to that or any illegitimacy to it that's just what he said so he prayed to the Christian God put Christian symbols on his banners and won an astounding victory over an older more experienced general soon Constantine became emperor of the Roman Empire and issued the Edict of Milan in AD 313 that legalized Christianity and brought the church under the authority of Rome I cannot verify I don't have any way of denying if that's how he actually came to that conclusion or not we just can't say it may be a purely political decision you know

[25:29] Constantine may have been a political operative he may have been a consummate politician and if you know anything about politicians they always have their finger to the air to see which way the wind is blowing and that's the way they go this nation is cursed with an abundance of politicians on the state level and the national level and I've often said from this pulpit God preserve us from politicians we don't need them and don't want them what we need our principled statesmen that's what we need not politicians for all we know Constantine may have sensed that this thing of Christianity is getting out of hand and there's more of them than there is of us we had better you know the old analogy if you can't beat them join them for all we know this may have been a purely political decision but for whatever the motive was that's what happened and whereas

[26:39] Christianity had always up to this time been considered illegal and you could be put to death for being a Christian now it became illegal not to be a Christian well how are you going to make people be Christians well you pass a law that's what politicians do they pass laws and they say you will become a Christian and we are told we are told that there were thousands of pagan priests who were previously given over to every kind of idolatry that you could imagine who stood in line waiting to be baptized into the Christian faith and of course being baptized with water by any means doesn't do anything for the inside of a person it doesn't make you a new person in Christ that comes about only by faith not by the application of water in any mode but it was a ceremony and those who went through it were considered to be

[27:42] Christians so Christianity then became the official religion and a mere 60 years later it became the exclusive religion of the Roman Empire now note that word exclusive religion of the Roman Empire because Rome was the seat of power the church in Rome rose to prominence and the bishop of Rome became the most powerful leader of the western half of the empire later he became known as the Pope that's the original title of the Pope even of the Pope serving today he is officially in the Roman Catholic Church he is the bishop of Rome but he is also the Pope so that's his jurisdiction this was a dramatic turning point in church history clergymen were put on the empire's payroll now what that did was it married the church and the state it made them one and the same this is a concept that is still in practice today in many nations throughout the world

[28:51] Germany still has an official Lutheran church that is the official church of the nation of Germany Finland I think has a Lutheran church also as well as Norway I think they are Lutheran as well Great Britain has an official church of England the Episcopal church that is married to the church now there is a separation of church and state but they still maintain the royalty and they still go through a lot of the ceremonies etc so the Anglicans remained the official church of England it's called the church of England and when our forefathers founded this country one of the things they put in to the constitution was that the government shall make no provision for religious activity or for a church or prohibit the free exercise thereof and the reason they did that was because they wanted to make sure that the

[30:04] United States of America did not become another England with an official state church so we have what is known as a separation of church and state here and it goes back to the times of our constitution but in any Islamic country for instance whether you're talking Saudi Arabia Syria or any other Islamic nation there is no such thing as separation of church and state the state is the church the church is the state only they don't call it a church of course they call it Islam but there is no distinction between them and in Iran it is the molahs who are both the political and the religious authority all wrapped up into one so the politics is the religion and the religion is the politics and they are inseparable so because Rome was the seat of power the church in Rome rose to prominence and the bishop of Rome became the most powerful leader of the western half of the empire later he became known as the pope with more power than the emperor well how could he have more power than the emperor in a moment and the

[31:17] Roman Catholic church spread in influence it grew more powerful even than the governments of Europe and the way this came about is very simple when you understand Roman Catholic theology and the power that the church exercised in these early centuries it was believed widely that the Roman Catholic church was the official organ of God almighty not only was it the official organ it was the only one and that all power and all authority of God on earth was vested in the Roman Catholic church in the pope and in the priesthood now it didn't make any difference whether or not that was true all that mattered is whether or not people believed it and the vast majority of people did believe it and they believed it because this is what they were taught and people are very much subject to influence we've learned that the hard way right here in our own nation how influenceable people are and when they embraced that concept individuals saw their personal salvation wrapped up in the church matter of fact officially this is still the position of the

[32:40] Roman Catholic Church today because in the five minutes I have left let me just briefly explain this if you talk to a Roman Catholic friend and you mention the subject of grace you will find that they believe in it very definitely and we talk about salvation by grace and they believe that very definitely but when you inquire further what do you mean salvation by grace they simply mean that salvation for the individual is administered through the sacraments that's how the grace of God is extended to the individual it is through the sacraments so Catholicism becomes a sacramental kind of belief or faith it is sacerdotalism and it believes that it believes and teaches that in order for you to be a recipient of God's grace you must partake of the sacraments that are entrusted to the church as the custodian of those sacraments one of them is communion so when you go to communion and you receive the wafer you put out your tongue and the priest places the wafer on your tongue that is receiving

[34:05] Christ because Christ is in that wafer not figuratively but literally because when the priest consecrates the elements the wine becomes the actual literal blood of Christ it may look like wine it may taste like wine but they insist that it is the actual blood of Christ and that the wafer is the actual body of Christ so when you receive the elements you are receiving Christ that is your salvation because it is a sacramental thing grace is dispensed through the sacraments one of which is communion another is confession and another is holy orders for the priest and of course the last one is extreme unction which is administered when you die now this is not to say that none of those things have any merit or any value at all it is just a misunderstanding and a misappropriation of it and it all ties in with how you interpret the

[35:09] Bible when Jesus said holding the bread aloft when Jesus said this is my body which is given for you did he mean this is actually my body or actually going to become my body or did he mean this represents my body we believe the latter our Roman Catholic friends believe the former and by the way nobody is charging anyone with underhandedness or trickery or deceit or anything people really believe these things and you have to respect them for their convictions even though you don't agree with them but they honestly hold these positions and they do so out of good faith that doesn't make them right but you can understand where they're coming from so when you receive the elements then this is what keeps you in good standing and if something should happen that you are excommunicated from the church kicked out of the church like for instance if you were to obtain a divorce without an annulment and if you know anything about

[36:18] Roman Catholic theology you know that divorce never happens even if you've been married to someone and had a half a dozen kids and you've been married to them for 20 years you do not get a divorce you get an annulment if the church is willing to grant you one but if you go through the channels of divorce without the blessing of the church and the annulment then you are automatically excommunicated from the church and if you are put out of the church your salvation is impossible you're done for there is no eternal life for you you have nothing to look forward to but hell because the only way that you can be a member in good standing is to partake of the sacraments that are offered by the church and when you are from the sacraments and you cannot participate you cannot be in God's favor at all because

[37:19] God's favor is administered strictly solely through the church and you've cut yourself off from that by your behavior now can you see if someone really believes that and accepts that how that puts them under an unquestioned control situation by the church even if you happen to be a king or queen and you are the potentate of the whole realm nonetheless the church is the custodian of your eternal destiny and you better not cross it some did and what happened well they were excommunicated the pope or the priest simply kicked them out of the church officially and that means they are cut off from God that my friends is power that is control that is leverage and the

[38:22] Roman Catholic Church has used it expertly for thousands of years and it has served them very well today we all know just from reading the newspaper that there's a lot of chaos going on Catholicism and with the new Pope Francis and some new reforms that he's bringing to the issue he's already caused a big stir among some of the bishops who fear that he's going too far and that he is actually changing church doctrine there's a big move on now in the Roman Catholic Church to entice those formerly excommunicated back and it is a coming home thing and they are desperately trying to win back the people that have strayed from the Catholic Church or been excommunicated from it and they've really had some very serious problems lately and you know as well as I how many hundreds of millions of dollars the church has had to pay out to settle these priest sex abuse cases all over the world where the molestation of young boys has taken place in some cases for decades until it was finally brought to light and then there were trials and there were some some priests have actually gone to prison and been defrocked over it and this has really damaged the

[39:59] Roman Catholic Church in some very severe ways and it has hurt them a great deal financially because of the hundreds of millions of dollars they've had to pay out so all of these things come into play in what we are talking about with the persecution of the Jew now how does all of that figure in to the rise of the Catholic Church just this and with this I'll have to terminate our study for the morning but what is taking place is that the power of the Roman Catholic Church is going to be unleashed on the Jewish people all throughout Europe because they are seen as responsible for the crucifixion of the Messiah and one of the responsibilities of Christians is to do whatever they can to punish the Jew and make them pay and that's exactly what has been taking place for the last 2,000 years well not 2,000 years but 1,500 years and one of the chief promoters of that was none other than

[41:14] Martin Luther himself and I'm going to share with you some things that next week well not next week because the Craig family will be here and not the following week because we'll be having communion but the week after that we'll be sharing with you some of the things that the Lutheran church worldwide has offered an apology for to the Jewish community worldwide because of statements that were made by Martin Luther their founder and they find them to be unacceptable and embarrassing now and they are but Luther cut loose a series of invectives against the Jew that were just absolutely disgusting and Martin Luther is one of my favorite people I mean this man this man was brilliant and he made enormous contributions to Christianity but he had a dark side and we need to understand that it is all part of our fallenness and you know something every one of us has a dark side every one of us has something about us that is not pleasing to God whether it's pride envy jealousy whatever we all have that dark side and that's part of our fallen humanity and that's why

[42:33] Jesus Christ came because of our dark sides not because of our bright side while we were yet sinners Christ died for us wow never get over that well this morning I have given you a kind of an impromptu hodgepodge of content which I had not planned to deliver but I put together rather quickly when I knew that the people yesterday were not coming that talked to me yesterday were not coming today so this is would you do this for me if you haven't already picked up volume four make sure you get it on your way out and please make sure that you have all four copies of these replacement theology and if you will read them earnestly you will get a great deal of insight as to what we're talking about and why the Jewish people regard Christians as they do to this day and I don't have any problem at all in understanding how and why they feel about us the way they do they have every right to and you'll see more about that two or three weeks from now would you stand with me please father there isn't anything about us that enables us to love one another as we should apart from the love of

[44:00] Christ being in us because we use the love that you have spent on us to love others and in and of ourselves we can be so filled with prejudice and hatred just like some of those in the radical Islamic fold but when Jesus Christ comes in changes the human heart gives us not only forgiveness but a perspective a new outlook for if anyone is in Christ he's a new creation behold all things have passed away and all things have become new and we are so thankful for that we recognize that in our flesh there dwells no good thing but what you have put in us by way of your spirit is there for our blessing and our benefit and for our using it to love one another like we really should thank you for all that you've extended to us we recognize that it comes to us because of what Jesus did on that cross and we are so grateful thank you for the presence of each one here today for what we have to anticipate when our

[45:19] Lord Jesus comes and catches us away to himself we say even so come Lord Jesus in his name amen yes then do listen yes we just see this there we we have done as well