Alan Lazerte, B.A., LL.B.
It is recorded that Jesus answered, "You shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations." That process which actually started in 586 B.C. with Nebuchadnezzar conquering Jerusalem and the Babylonian exile of seventy years was finalized in 70 A.D. after the nation not only had rejected the crucified Messiah, but had rejected the witness of His apostles. Jesus Himself prophesied and cried over Jerusalem and said, "Daughters of Jerusalem don't weep for Me. Weep for yourselves and your own children. How often I desired to take you under My wings, but You would not have Me." These prophecies came true, and in 70 A.D. Titus the Roman General came and destroyed the Holy of Holies for the last time. And then Jesus says, "And Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles" another translation says, "Jerusalem shall be ruled by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled."
So in 1967 Israel's army recaptured the old city of Jerusalem and the soldiers and the rabbis went to the Wailing Wall. They had been wailing because they hadn't had it since 70 A.D., and actually they hadn't had sovereign control over it since 587 B.C., because when Nebuchadnezzar came from that day on Israel was never its own master. The Jewish people, even when they lived in the land were subjects of some other empire. Whether Nebuchadnezzar or Alexander the Great or whether it was the Roman Empire in Jesus' day, they never had full control over their own destiny. So following that military victory known as the Six Day War, in 1979 the government of Israel passed a law called the Jerusalem Law and it said: "Jerusalem is the capitol of Israel now and forever." Well, all hell broke loose.
Thirteen nations that had their embassies in Jerusalem were intimidated by oil pressure and trade boycotts to take those embassies out of Jerusalem thus denying that it is the capitol city of Israel and move them some forty-five miles away to Tel Aviv. The Canadian Embassy has always been in Tel Aviv. The Prime Minister said that he was going to move it to Jerusalem and was prevented from doing so by business pressures, political realities, and I often wonder if it is a coincidence that he is no longer the Prime Minister and no longer the leader of his party. Because once one makes a promise that involves the Almighty, it must be fulfilled or consequences flow.
So in 1979 all these nations moved their embassies out of Jerusalem because Israel had done a dastardly deed and taken control of the city of Jerusalem and the West Bank. To be consistent the nations should also move their embassies out of Moscow to Stalingrad because of the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. Right. I am still waiting for that to happen. Haven't heard it discussed yet. The point is there is a double standard. There is a big trial going on in the United States right now where an Israeli General named Sharon sued a publication and the jury is presently deliberating over the damages for slandering. it is all part of the picture. I can tell you that having walked on the other side of the street as an anti-Semite that there is genuine spiritual warfare going on. At the very least as a Christian, you must not get between God and the Jewish people in a negative way. I give you that word in the power of the Spirit today. If you do nothing else concerning this question of Jewish-Christian relations, get out of the way of God's love and commitment to them. If you have the Spirit of Truth you can discern whether that statement is of the LORD or not.
God is again going in the opposite direction of the human race. The United Nations wants Jerusalem to be the world's first international city. No. You see God has chosen it for His Son. His Son, Jesus, will return physically and will sit on the throne of David in the city of Jerusalem and will rule the nations with a rod of iron. You see Satan's first plan was to ascend into heaven and takeover the throne of God. He blew it. His second plan was to prevent the birth of the Messiah, and that is why the Pharaohs of Egypt instructed the women to throw all the male children into the Nile. That is why Herod instructed his solders to go out and kill all the male children around Bethlehem around the time that the wise men reported the birth of the KING of Israel. Satan wanted to prevent the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Well, when he didn't succeed in that, and having vented his wrath on all the innocent children, then he took and tried to destroy Jesus and nailed Him to a cross outside of Jerusalem in total shame as a criminal and he said, "Ha! Ha! Now I have done it!" But then as the earthquake and the rocks split and the graves opened and people walked around Jerusalem in a temporary resurrection and the sun went down at noon day and the heavens became dark and the moon did not give its light Satan said, "Come down off the cross! If You are the Son of God, come down and we will believe You!" Jesus cried with a loud voice, "Father into Thy hands I commit My Spirit." and the veil and the temple which kept man from the presence of a Holy God in the Holy of Holies was torn in two from the top to the bottom. And man in his religion sewed it up again and carried on as normal until 70 A.D. It had served its purpose as a shadow and a type of a better thing to come for it is not by the blood of goats and bulls that we can be saved, but the blood of the Righteous Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world.
Can you see the enormity of the Jewish tragedy? Can you see it with the pathos of God? Can you see it with the voice and the eyes of a prophet of God? Like Hosea has said, "Go and marry a harlot and I will teach you how Israel has committed adultery with Me." So a man of God, a prophet of God, married a woman who becomes a harlot and at night he visits the streets. he loves her. he searches for her. He finds her lying in the gutter. Beaten and bruised and he picks her up. This is the heart of God for His people Israel. This is the heart of the Gospel. This ought to be your heart and mine for these people for they are truly blinded and unable, often through our insensitivity and fault. You see Moses in Deuteronomy nearly 4000 years ago prophesied that the time would come when the LORD would send to the Jewish people: "I will call a people who are not My people (the Gentiles) and I will bless them, and they will provoke you to jealousy and draw you back to Me."
We mentioned the Inquisition. We mentioned the Crusades. We must mention the Holocaust. You see, as far as the Jewish people are concerned, Christians did it. Most of the S.S. wore little brass buckles with a cross on it saying, "God with us." Most of them professed to being Christians, and I am sad to say that some of them no doubt were. It is so diabolical spiritually that the name of the S.S. in Romania was officially this: "The Legion of the Archangel Michael." The name of the S.S. in Romania which forced Jews to crawl on their hands and knees up the ramp of the slaughterhouse; hit them over the head with a sledgehammer, stamp "Kosher" on their heads, and hung them on meat hooks. I am sorry. I have read the account of eyewitnesses. We Christians have to face some realities. We were not alive. We didn't do it if we were alive. But some of our ancestors may have and, as I understand the Scriptures, some generations are called upon to pray for forgiveness of the sins of their fathers and this is one such generation.
Canada was a long way away and we were innocent weren't we? No we weren't. We had a Prime Minister who was in the occult, read a crystal ball and talked to his dead mother and dead dog through a familiar spirit. He was the Prime Minister of Canada, and did you know that Canada's official immigration policy until 1948 was against Jews coming here. The head of the Immigration Department, in addition to the Prime Minister, was anti-Semitic. This gentleman, Mr. Blair, went to church every Sunday, and hated the Jews. He constantly advised the Prime Minister to not let them in because they make lousy soldiers and lousy farmers. I wish he were alive today. I would take him to Israel. The Russians are terrified of the Israeli soldiers, and the world is going to need Israeli know-how on how to water the desert and grow food. There wouldn't be starvation in Ethiopia right now if Jewish know-how was allowed to work there as it is working in some other countries.
And speaking of prophecy, you have been hearing about Operation Moses and the Ethiopian Jews and their airlift to Israel; why would they call that Operation Moses? The answer is in the Bible. Moses' first wife was Zipporah the daughter of Jethro, but later on you will read that Moses married an Ethiopian, and that is where the Ethiopian Jews came from and were born. Now, God has said, "I will bring you together in the last days." This is one of the signs of the times. In the Gospels Jesus said, "Behold the fig tree and all the trees." The "fig tree" brothers and sisters is Israel and "all the trees" are the nations.
We are edging into a climax of world history. It will be the world against Israel. God forbid that Christians be on the wrong side. Because if you or your sons or your daughters are in the armies against Israel you will be in Armageddon. If you want to see what is going to happen to the enemies of Israel in Armageddon just read the last three chapters of the prophet Zechariah: "I will gather all the nations of the earth to battle against Jerusalem. And there I will slay the enemies of Israel." There is a description of a battle there that can only be radioactive for the skin dissolves from the bones, the eyes dissolve in their sockets, the tongue dissolves in the mouth. It can only be nuclear. I want no part of it. I don't want my children or grandchildren to have any part of it and they need not because we have the guide plan. We have the blueprint if we will get into it.
So at the time when all the nations left Jerusalem, Christians praying together in a Baptist Church in Jerusalem, which was later burned down by some Jewish religious extremists and concerning the rebuilding of which the Mayor of Jerusalem took up a collection to rebuild a Christian church. God still has His ways.
Christians from all over the world in about seventeen countries decided to take over the empty Chilean Embassy and they opened the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem. In my humble opinion, what has happened since through that witness to Israel is very positive and prophetic. There is a staff of forty full time workers there now from all over the world, interdenominational or nondenominational if you prefer. They have a department which deals only with Soviet Jewry. Anybody interested in that subject contact me. They have a department which deals only with intercessory prayer. They have a news department which gathers together accurate news from the Middle East and interprets it from a Christian biblical perspective.
Every year at the Feast of Tabernacles the Prime Minister of Israel has come and spoken to five or six thousand Christians. I have heard the Prime Minister of Israel say, "We know as Jews that our only real friends in this world are real Bible reading, Bible believing Christians like you." You have probably heard of the Balfour Declaration in 1917, England, "Her Majesty's Government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national homeland for the Jews." Did you know that the Prime Minister of England, Lloyd George, was a Christian who read his Old Testament? Did you know that Lord Balfour, the Foreign Minister under whose hospices the resolution was presented, was a Bible believing, Old Testament reading Christian who believed God's promise that Israel would be restored and that there would come a day when all the Jews would be saved? Well most of the governments in England since then have spent all of their time from preventing that prophecy from happening. But it has been fulfilled nevertheless.
I urge you to go to the Feast of Tabernacles this year in Jerusalem, September 29th to October 6th. It is a life changing experience. You will never forget it. There are seminars and teaching by the world's best Bible teachers, we have books by Derek Prince, "The Last Word on the Middle East", and of course the last word is God's Word. Lance Lambert, a Jewish Christian, has written a book "Until the Day Dawns" which gives you all the prophecies which have to be fulfilled before Jesus returns and touches on the Mount of Olives and walks into Jerusalem to sit on David's throne on the Temple Mount. We have a book written by a lady who has devoted her masters thesis to the question of Soviet Jewry and a little book condensing that masters thesis. I gave it to a Jewish person recently had he said that it was one of the most accurate, informed, well-researched books that he has ever read on Soviet Jewry.
How can you help the Jewish people? Well you can refuse to accept or tolerate anti-Semitism from Keegstra or Zendel or anyone else; and get rid of your Jewish jokes. Turn the jokes around on someone else. You can pray for them. Psalm 122:6: "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. They shall prosper that love her." We don't want to be too selfish about this, but do you want to be blessed? There is a promise of a blessing in the Word of God: pray for Jerusalem! The city of Peace which has known no peace since Melchizedek met Abraham. Genesis 12:3: "Abraham, I will bless those that bless you, and I will curse those that curse you and through you shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." The tragedy of history today is that the nations are cursing what God has blessed. The time has come to turn it all around.
Balaam, the prophet, when bribed by the king to curse Israel couldn't accept the bribe. He said, "I cannot curse what God has blessed." The people who have cursed Israel have been cursed; including Adolf Hitler who put a gun in his mouth and blew his brains out with Eva by his side; she took poison. They were married an hour earlier to put everything "right" with God and be in good standing in the church. They were married under her lamp shades made out of human skin.
Father, You have spoken to us by Your Spirit. Jesus, You Yourself said, "Blessed are they who hear these things and do them." We need hear no more.