Mar 10, 2012

Guilty Parties

Arlie FrancisBy Arlie Francis
Disciple Daily

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At 5:20 AM, a cab arrived to take me to the San Diego airport. The driver introduced himself as Telase. Because of his accent, I thought that Telase was likely an immigrant to the USA. Always curious, I inquired, “Where are you from?” “Ethiopia,” he replied. Looking to engage him in a spiritual conversation I quietly inquired of the Lord, “What’s next?” No sooner had my silent prayer concluded than Telase proudly proclaimed, “I am a Jew!” It is not often that a Jewish person so readily identifies himself. Let me explain.

Shoah is the Hebrew word generally used by Jewish people to identify their cataclysmic national tragedy known by Gentiles as the Holocaust. During the years when Satan’s demonic forces ruled the hearts of Germany’s leaders, six million Jews perished in factories of death. Throughout history, evil men have targeted many groups of people for elimination. Genocide is always evil, always of Satan. Wherever the systematic slaughter of others occurs the individuals and governments responsible should be identified and punished.

Confronting the Remnants of the Holocaust

The Shoah, however, was altogether different. The Holocaust was genocide in overdrive and fueled by satanic anti-Semitism. Following the liberation of the survivors from Nazi concentration camps, people the world over were forced to look at the unspeakably horrific images. The broken, rotting, and incinerated remains of what was once living flesh sickened most. Some thought that this kind of evil could never happen again. How I wish that this was true, but it isn’t.

Germany of the 1930s was home to three categories of Goyim, people who are not Jewish. Olivier Melnick, the author of The New Anti-Semitism has identified two of these groups. He asserts that these groups still exist today, and that their numbers are on the rise. They both have guilt for what happened to his grandparents in the Holocaust.

The first group Melnick identifies as the perpetrators. The perpetrators were Hitler’s paid henchmen. Under his direction they plotted and planned the Final Solution to what they called the Jewish problem. Plans were drawn up, people mobilized, and step by systematic step they jack-booted their way through Jewish communities across Europe, the Middle East, and Northern Africa. They rounded up Jews wherever they were found. Yes, they also targeted other minority groups, including some Bible believers that read the Scriptures and understood the times they lived in. These gentiles, however, were their secondary targets. Like Satan himself, the Nazis’ primary objective was the destruction of the “apple of God’s eye,” the Jewish people. Their engine of hatred was built for speed and efficiency.

The engine was fueled by the ignorance, lethargy, and manipulation of the masses. These were the blissfully unconcerned. This group heard their leaders identify the Jews as the root of all the problems in the world. They looked away from what was happening to the Jews for many reasons, all of them self-serving. They were much like the citizens of Rome whose allegiance was bought for the loaf of bread they received at the Coliseum. Melnick identifies this group as the bystanders. Because they chose to look away when all the signs pointed to the rising evil just outside their doors, they are guilty of participating in the Holocaust by omission rather than the commission of the perpetrators.

There was also a third group. Some of their names are remembered by the planting of trees in their honor at Yad Vashem—Israel’s national memorial to the Holocaust in Jerusalem. Corrie ten Boom, Oskar Schindler, Miep and Jan Gies, Irena Sendler, and Raoul Wallenberg are a few of the people who risked everything they had to save the Jewish people who lived nearby. There are many more whose names may never be known. Some of these were motivated by the fact that they believed in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. As readers of the Bible, they looked at the times in which they were living, and acted accordingly. Some of these even shared the fate of those they were trying to help and were imprisoned or died in the Holocaust. They understood that the problem of man’s sin began in the Garden of Eden, with the breaking of the first conditional covenant God made with man.

Make no mistake! Hitler counted on the ambivalence of the entire world in his attempt to eradicate the Jewish people from the face of the earth. Since the rebirth of Israel in 1948, the collective cry of Jewish people around the world has been “never again!” The rest of us should be saying the same thing. Tragically most of us are not, and it appears that the times we now live in are like the 1930s once again.

There is a new anti-Semitism on the rise around the world. Let’s identify this for what it is. Like every other ill in this fallen world, the new anti-Semitism is just one manifestation of sin. Mine! Yours! Gentile sin! And yes, even Jewish sin! Sin is sin, and not one of us is without guilt.

Collectively, the prognosis for humanity is not good. But, there is an answer to this problem of sin on an individual basis. While we as humans can do nothing to stop the rising tide of sin in the world, there is a personal remedy.

You see, my cab driver that morning has already discovered for himself the unbelievable answer to his own problem of sin. As we spoke, I discovered that Telase is a Jew who believes in Yeshua. It is because of Yeshua that Telase boldly proclaimed “I am a Jew who believes in Jesus!” And Yeshua is the only hope for sinful people who live in a sinful world.



Related Links
Eden—Paradise Lost • Disciple Daily TV (Arlie Francis)
The Righteous Among The Nations • Yad Vashem
The Source of Anti-Semitism • SpiritandTruth.org (Andy Woods)
Hitler or not, the Nazi comparison is real • The Commentator
100+ Rockets Strike Israel on Weekend; 15 Gaza Arabs Said Dead • Arutz Sheva