The Rise of Antisemitism – Why Do People Hate the Jews? - Part B

Many of the covenants have been fulfilled, but not all of them have been fulfilled. There is still the promise that God will set up a kingdom in Israel, in Jerusalem, and rule and reign from there.

There will be a kingdom that encompasses the earth that is centered in Jerusalem. The Bible predicts that Jerusalem will become a stumbling block for all nations. History shows that the Jews have been the target of intense persecution, from their time in Egypt to the dark days of Nazi Germany and throughout their regathering in the land. And now we see the phenomenon of anti-Semitism raising its ugly head at an alarming rate.

Why do people hate the Jews? That's the question we will consider with Skip Heitzig on today's edition of this special Israel at War series. Back in Genesis chapter 3, the first prediction of Messiah, the seed of the woman will come and bruise the heel of the serpent, crush the head of the dragon of the serpent. And then Isaiah chapter 9 talks about his rule, For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. The government will be on his shoulder.

Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. So it's a very appropriate picture of Israel birthing the Messiah, Satan ready to destroy that child as soon as he is born. Why? To crush the head, to bruise the head, to take away any possibility of him ruling. Satan throughout biblical history has been trying to destroy the woman to get to the seed, destroy the nation of Israel to get to the seed. Now, why such hatred? I just want to keep kind of zeroing in on this question. Why such hatred of Satan toward Israel?

Well, let me give you a premise. What if God's plan to redeem the world required the existence of a nation and the continuance of that nation? What if God's plan to redeem the world required the existence of a nation and the continuance of that nation? Well, if that were true, and I believe it is, if you destroy that nation, you will thwart God's plan.

If you can destroy those people, you will thwart God's plan. I have to tell you this, you will not understand much of your Bible until you understand this. Until you see that there is and has been an invisible war, this cosmic conflict that has been waged since the very beginning of time, you will read your Bible and you'll go, huh? And a lot of the passages, it will remain enigmatic to you. So, a cosmic conflict has been waged as a pursuit by Satan to destroy the seed that would eventually crush Satan's kingdom and rule the world.

Let me give you a few examples of that. As soon as God made the promise in Genesis 3, the seed of the woman is going to come and crush the head of the serpent. The very next chapter, chapter 4, Satan gets Cain to kill Abel. He's the righteous one who brings the appropriate sacrifice, so Cain kills his brother. But then God raises up another child by the name of Seth and the seed continues through Seth and the promise continues through him. The second example is in Genesis chapter 6.

Cut to the chase. Let's just make the whole world so wicked that God has to destroy everybody. A scorched earth policy, or in that case, I guess, a soaked earth policy. So, the world became so corrupt, so despicable, the intents and thoughts of mankind was only evil continually, that God destroyed the earth in a worldwide flood. Everybody's destroyed except one family, eight people. God preserved the eight to continue the promise of the seed who would come. The third example is in Genesis 27. You know the story of Jacob and Esau and how Jacob gets the birthright and Esau hates his brother. He didn't care about the birthright, but he sold it for a bowl of stew. But then he got so angry, it says he determined in his heart that he was going to kill Jacob.

Why? Because Jacob was the son of promise. You keep continuing that line throughout the Bible. The fourth example, you come to Pharaoh. And Pharaoh has a group of people living in his country called Jews. And he is so afraid of what these people might become that he gives this strange and demonic edict to the midwives of Egypt that if the Hebrews have boys, kill them. Kill them all.

If it's a girl, let it live. Why did he do that? He was an agent of Satan trying to destroy the Jews because the Jews, the woman, would birth the male child. The fifth example is in 1 Samuel where Saul, not once, not twice, but for a decade hunts David down to kill him. Why David? Because more and more promises are getting leaked out.

It's sort of like military intelligence. As God reveals his plan through the Scripture, there's counteractive measures that the enemy uses. And so destroy the one that God is going to set his promise upon for an eternal kingdom, and that would be David.

The sixth example, though it's a little bit obscure, but it won't be in a couple weeks because we're studying 2 Kings. And in 2 Kings 11, there's a woman by the name of Athaliah. And Athaliah, in 2 Kings 11, decides to kill the entire royal line of Judah. Every single possible heir to the throne of Judah from the lineage of King David will be destroyed. And she destroys all of them, except one.

A little boy by the name of Joash is hidden away with the midwife who nursed him. And if, if by any chance all of them would have been destroyed, God's promise would have been thwarted. But one is saved, Joash is saved, and the line continues.

Here's another example, a seventh example. We come to the story of the Jews in Persia, modern day Iran. By God's provision, he allows Esther to become the queen of the palace of Ahasuerus, but a man by the name of Haman, the Agagite.

Do you know the story of that? Remember when Saul was sent out to battle and said, go kill the king and everybody just destroy them because they're going to terrorize your country. And he brought Agag back. And Samuel said, why did you bring him back? And he said, well, you know, I spared some of these people in the royal family because, you know, I'm sacrificing the Lord.

He made up all these excuses. You know what Samuel did, he hacked them to pieces. And one of those Agagites survived to make an edict in Persia that every single living Jew in Persia would be wiped out in one day.

Destroy them all, kill them all. That's just the Old Testament. You come to the New Testament, the male child is born, Jesus is born.

He's born in what city? Bethlehem, Herod finds out about it. What does he decide to do? Kill every single male child two years and below.

Why? It's a demonic plot to destroy the seed. Then Jesus grows up, meets Satan on the Mount of Temptation, and Satan throws this wild thought at him. Hey, let me take you to the pinnacle of the temple.

Throw yourself off. Probably hoping he would die. But he quotes Scripture, throw yourself off, for as the Scripture has said, he'll command his angels to have charge over you and lest you dash your foot against the stone. Not only that, but when Jesus went back to the synagogue in Nazareth sometime after that, and he opened up the scroll of Isaiah, and then he expounded that to them and said, that is fulfilled in your hearing. It says they thrust him out of the synagogue and took him to the brow of the hill and would have thrown him over.

Attempt after attempt after attempt after attempt to destroy the woman, to get at the seed, to prevent the seed from crushing the head of the dragon and ruling the world with a rod of iron. And then it happened. One Friday afternoon in spring, we believe around 32 A.D., three o'clock in the afternoon, Jesus died on that cross. And probably when Jesus died on the cross, there was a little party going on in hell. Satan thought he had won the victory. The body of Jesus, limp, dead, had blood throughout the day, had been taken off, wrapped in linen, put in a tomb.

And Satan probably just went, it's done. But he didn't read the fine print. The fine print is where Jesus said, no one takes my life from me. I lay it down of myself. I have the power to lay it down.

Here's the fine print, and take it again. And he did take it up again. And I've always been intrigued by an interesting little Scripture in 1 Corinthians 2, verse 8. Had the princes of this world known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. There was no party in hell when Jesus rose from the dead. Every time we mention the resurrection here at church, you all applaud. I like that. Whenever we sing about Jesus conquering death, you applaud.

I love that. They did not do that in hell. When Jesus rose from the dead, plan B was to unleash all of Satan's fury now on the people of God, the church, and continue his assault on the chosen people through whom the kingdom will be given, and that is the nation of Israel.

Now, you might wonder, well, why? Now, if Jesus died on the cross and rose again and then ascended, why would there be a continual conflict? And yet, that is what the passage seems to indicate.

Here, there's a woman giving birth to the male child. The male child is born, is caught up to God, but there's still this unleashing of the dragon's wrath on the woman. Back to the premise I just gave you a few moments ago. If God's plan of redemption required the existence of a nation and the continuance of that nation, if you destroy that nation, you will thwart God's plan. If you destroy the nation of Israel, you defeat God. Essentially, you keep God from fulfilling all of his promises. You keep Jesus from establishing his kingdom so that the Jews cannot receive it. And so the battle continues. Here's the basic premise.

Here's the bottom line. Whatever God loves, Satan hates. Whatever God loves, Satan hates. So anti-Semitism is a prejudice, and we all denounce prejudice, and we should. Prejudice is evil. It's wrong.

Racial prejudice is wrong. But anti-Semitism is downright satanic. It comes right back to the heart of the dragon himself.

It's from the pit of hell. Now, why do I support Israel? And why do I make a stand from time to time that we as a church support Israel?

Because there's no logical reason for me to support Israel. I'm not Jewish. I'm a Gentile. Moreover, I'm a German Gentile. And if you know the history of my people and where I came from, there is no logical reason to be at all favorable toward Jewish people.

But something happened to me. I started reading this book, and I find it to be a very Jewish book. I find God to be a Jewish God. I find him to make very Jewish promises. I find that my Savior, the Messiah, was Jewish and that he promises to return one day and rule from Jerusalem for 1,000 years with the people of Israel. Now, I'll be the first to say that Israel is not perfect when it comes to its policies, when it comes to its government.

There have been corruption charges in Israeli government, like in all governments. But when I say I support Israel, let me be clear about that. I support the covenant that God has made with Israel.

I support Israel because I support the covenant that God made with Israel. This war in Revelation chapter 12 began in heaven, but it moved to the theater of the earth, and you and I are involved in it. The devil commands the satanic realm, but his theater of operations is the human world. And there are four principal targets that Satan has. First target, Jesus Christ. He hates Jesus.

That's what this is all about. He's poised in front of the woman to get at that child as soon as it's born. Why? Because of the promise the seed of the woman will come and crush the head of the serpent. So Jesus, number one. Second, he attacks holy angels. Verse 7, there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought. Because the angels are part of God's cadre of might, working for his people on the earth, they are engaged in fighting holy angels.

So Jesus, holy angels. Number three, Israel. Israel. Why Israel? Because they are the object of God's promises. God made covenants with the Jews. This is Paul's whole point in Romans 9. Israel, of whom are the covenants, the giving of the law, and the Messiah himself.

And so the attack of Satan is against the ones God made a covenant with. This is important because many of the covenants have been fulfilled, but not all of them have been fulfilled. There is still the promise that God will set up a kingdom in Israel, in Jerusalem, and rule and reign from there. There will be a kingdom that encompasses the earth that is centered in Jerusalem. That promise has not yet been fulfilled.

We are waiting for that to be fulfilled. So Jesus, holy angels, Israel. And number four, believers, because we are objects of God's grace.

This is why you get harassed. This is why every single Christian who has ever been saved on planet earth has been harassed and tempted, because you are objects of God's grace. What does Revelation say of Satan? He's the accuser of the brethren. Ever felt that? Ever heard those accusations?

We all have. By the way, you know what the word devil means? Slanderer. That's what the name devil means. That's his M.O.

That's his description. So I just want you to hear this, because I wanted you to hear what Israel is up against. So as I close this, you know that yesterday Israel was accused of bombing a hospital in the Gaza, and the New York Times and CNN and all the news outlets immediately says it's Israel's fault. They just bombed that hospital. They've never bombed hospitals ever.

They're very careful about filming, documenting. And so what Israel did is they not only denied it, but they showed the world the video footage and the audio files of Hamas and Palestinian leaders talking, admitting that it was an Israel's missile, it was their own missile that they sent from Gaza that was a misfire and landed on that hospital. But they quickly said it was Israel's fault. The group that launched the missile was called the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. You see, you thought there was only Hamas and Hezbollah. There's like another hundred of those disparate groups around. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the former president of that group said, and I quote, the killing of the Jews will continue, killing, killing in God's name until they vanish. That's what they're up against. Killing, killing until they vanish.

Make peace with them, they'll kill again until they vanish. I want you to see how bad it is. This is despicable, but I think you need to see it. These are the quotes of children.

I've seen the actual footage. I'm just going to put the quotes up of different children in Gaza. One saying, right now, I am prepared to be a suicide bomber.

These are children between 9 and 12. With all its help, another one said, I will fight for ISIS, the Islamic State. Another child of that age said, I am ready to stab a Jew and drive a car over them. Another child said, we have to constantly stab them, drive over them, and shoot them. Another child, stabbing and running over Jews brings dignity to the Palestinians. Another child said, we have to fight against them and make war. These are quotes of children who have been taught to say that from a young age by parents and teachers.

So they're raising a whole new generation. I found this yesterday from a Jordanian Palestinian businessman and politician. His name is Talal Abu Ghazaleh.

He was being interviewed by a Lebanese TV just about a week ago, October 12th. He said, and we'll put this on the screen, Israel would not sacrifice a single person. There is not a goal for which it would sacrifice a single person. They are afraid of death. Death for them is strange and loathsome.

We, on the other hand, welcome death. A Palestinian carries his son on his shoulders with a headband on the kid's forehead, which his father inscribed martyrdom seeker. This is a man who says, I want my son to die. A Palestinian mother says, I have given birth to children so they would be martyred. This does not exist in the Zionist mentality, end quote. He's bragging on the fact that the Jews hate death.

We love death. And I just want you to see that, because that's what Israel is facing today. That is the dragon before the woman. And to add a morbid twist to it, because we are living in America, the FBI director warned just yesterday, Christopher Wray, that rising threats of Hamas-style terrorism are coming to America. That's why last week, when we talk about an open border, I get scared.

And we should be vigilant. But I want to close by saying this. The dragon couldn't stop Jesus from being born. The dragon couldn't stop Jesus from going to the cross and shedding his blood. The dragon couldn't stop Jesus from rising from the dead. The dragon couldn't stop Jesus from ascending into heaven.

The dragon cannot stop Jesus from coming again and ruling this world, and he will. That's Skip Heiteck with the conclusion of his message, Why Do People Hate the Jews? Israel and the Jews are at the epicenter of biblical prophecy, Middle East politics, and today's headlines. Around the world and close to home, protesters are taking their rhetoric against the Jewish community to the streets. Violent language and calls to action targeting Israel are no longer hidden but spoken aloud for all to hear. This sickening trend should come as no surprise to students of scripture and world history. On our next broadcast of Connect with Skip Heiteck, we will present our final Israel at War update in the message Israel and the Palestinians, facts and myths.

Now, let's hear about a special resource package we are offering this week. When events on earth become increasingly confusing and disturbing, we need to understand what the Bible says about the days we live in and what's ahead. The book of Revelation speaks strongly about both of these issues, but many are reluctant to consider the Bible's final book. As part of this special Israel at War series, we're offering Skip Heiteck's book, You Can Understand the Book of Revelation. The signs that we're dealing with are signs of that future period, the tribulation period.

Seven-year period. Whereas the rapture is a sign-less event. In other words, it can happen at any time. But future events often cast their shadows before them. You can understand the book of Revelation, and you need to.

Only God can accurately predict the future. We aren't told everything, but we need to understand what is revealed. Also included in this package is Skip's booklet, Are We Living in the Last Days? Get this booklet and the book, You Can Understand the Book of Revelation, when you make a donation of $50 or more to support Connect with Skip. Your gift will go toward the financial costs of this teaching program. Request your package online at connectwithskip.com or by calling 1-800-922-1888.

That's 1-800-922-1888. When you order this package, your donation will support and expand this program, Connect with Skip Heitzig. Join us next time for the Israel at War Update. Israel and the Palestinians. Facts and myths. Make a connection Make a connection At the foot of the crossing Cast all burdens on His word Make a connection A connection Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.