The barbaric Hamas invasion of southern Israel on October 7, 2023 is being called Israel’s 9/11, and drawing direct comparisons to the suffering of Jews during the Nazi Holocaust.
And just as following those atrocities, people are asking: Where was God? How could He permit such suffering, especially to the people of Israel, whom He promised to return to their Land in order to do them good?
These questions were the focal point of a segment on Channel 14 News, Israel’s conservative religious mainstream news channel. And presenter Dana Varon gave an answer part of which Christians might find misguided, but her conclusion will very much resonate with followers of Bible prophecy.
“We can’t make excuses for why this happened, and we can’t make excuses for God” as to why He didn’t prevent it, Varon began, before yet another rocket alert briefly interrupted the segment.
“I don’t want to try to explain why bad things still happen to Jews,” Varon continued. “There’s no way to justify evil happening to Jews.”
“At the same...
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I hope I can be sensitive in this address. God chastens those he loves Prov 3:11; Rev 3:19. Recognising you have been chastened is key to learning the lesson from it. Clearly this discussion recognises a chastening has taken place. Who was hit hardest? It was the young generation. Generation X is being reared with liberal humanistic social media and engineering. They are the future leaders who will become part of an increasingly anti-god global community. The lesson has caused Israel to question where it come from and where it is going. This is a good thing, not just for Israel but for the world. Where Israel leads the nations will follow. To the Jew first then to the Greek, Romans 2:9,10. This chastening is bringing God’s global community together, surely we are in the last days.
God is wondering where the NONBELIEVER Jews and Gentiles are? Have they all accepted his Son as Lord? Have they accepted the Bible as his Word? God tells everyone Jew and Gentile, he is waiting for you to become a sheep in his pasture, Psalm 23. Obviously you are still doing evil, sinning 10 commandment style. Us gentiles, we’ve repented, been born again, accepted him as Lord and keep his commandments.know what God calls humans who don’t fear him? FOOLS. You want his favor. Have a believer lead you to be born again, spiritually. Are you praying to him, praising him, loving him? Then you will know he is with you.
Absolutely, David. Have heard many say, Where was God when I needed him? But many didn’t even acknowledge God existed and didn’t call on Him. So sad.
Unfortunately, even as born again Christians, we don’t always keep God’s commandments and need to repent on a daily basis!
you say gentiles are saved. What percent of gentiles are actually saved?
You are an arrogant idiot, and an embarrassment to the God of Israel
There are some 2.5 billion Trinitarians, most of them unregenerate, who worship Jesus as G-d Almighty – idolaters won’t be saved (Rev 21:8).
Only a remnant of regenerate Gentiles who don’t forfeit their salvation through lawlessness will be saved.
1 percent? Who knows. In any case, very few non-Jews will be saved.
Where? Where He has always been, waiting. He won’t come where He’s not wanted. Until Jews call on the messhia kol israel he’ll just keep waiting.
The Lord Jesus is NOT waiting around. It is He, if you can believe it, who has been gathering the remnant, the ‘one-third’ (Zech 13:8) to the Promised Land. He is in the process of fulfilling Isaiah 49:6.
Just as Jesus was busy with the seven churches 1900 years ago, He is now also busy with refining the remnant whom He has kept and gathered. The Lord Jesus will give them all the gift of revelation about Him in due course.
In other words, we Christians no longer need to say to Jewish people that they must believe in Jesus first – He will see to it!
“This is a different generation, and He should speak to us differently”??
Before Oct 7, there were still many Jewish people in Israel who did not believe in the living God of Israel and who were not keeping the Sabbath day holy. A testimony of a young mother in a kibbutz says it all. She saw Hamas coming, so looked up and prayed that if God saved her and her children, she would keep the Sabbath day holy for the rest of her life. As soon as she prayed that, the terrorists walked on as if God blinded their eyes from her home.
God is ‘putting His people into the fire’ to refine them like silver (Zech 13:9). Faith in Yeshua can come later, faith in the God of Israel and in the Scripture first.
Disregarding the reason for it (and the preceding millennia of suffering), after Israel had been put to death through the Shoah, she was born again in 1948.
Some of the above comments display utter ignorance, since it is entirely irrelevant whether a Jewish person is secular, ultra-orthodox, messianic, or Buddhist, etc. ISRAEL IS DEAD IN G-D’S EYES!!! Her mistakes “don’t matter” anymore. All of Israel will be saved (Rom 11.26).
Oct. 7 is a partial fulfilment of Zech 14.2. Israel was NOT punished for anything, but He knew how Israel would react, and that her revenge would bring all the Gentiles against her = mere preparation for Israel’s ultimate victory.
And, yes, THEN Israel will be born again of water & Spirit/fire, when G-d will pour out the Spirit of Grace upon His people.
Most Christians who ramble about “accepting Jesus as Lord” are unregenerate idolaters who will be destroyed at the Parousia.
You are right in quoting Romans 11:26, but perhaps paying not enough attention to what God is doing to achieve it.
I once thought that He might give the remnant ‘a new heart’ and ‘a new spirit’ without them needing to go through testing times. But it is clear to me now that His way for His Chosen People is much tougher than that – putting them into ‘fires’ – through battles and mistreatment by Gentile nations.
I believe that Zechariah 14:2 was fulfilled once in 1967, and that a bigger one for Jerusalem may be yet to come.
“Jerusalem/ the city” is synonymous with “Jewry” here. Also, I didn’t know that women were raped in 1967 or folk was captured (“taken as hostages”).
It has nothing to do with testing. E.g. Zech 13:9, “I will bring the one-third through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined” refers to the Shoah = Jacob’s Trouble (1/3 of European Jewry survived).
People get all of this mixed up. They wait for the Great Tribulation (the Shoah), the Antichrist to turn up, the Abomination of Desolation to unfold, Daniel’s 70th week to be fulfilled, etc.)
In short, they all follow the beast and parrot what Rome Papal (the “In-place-of-Christ”) and the Jesuit Order (“The False Prophet”) has taught the masses for centuries.
We’re only waiting for the present conflict to escalate into the final conflict.
You are right saying that no women were raped in 1967 – everything else happened within the Old City Walls though, with hundreds of men taken to Jordan.
I have seen the gigantic Lord Jesus sitting on a throne that fit on the whole of the Temple Mount in a vision three times, and I believe that He is in the process of fulfilling Isaiah 49:6.
I don’t think that the present war is meant to directly escalate into the final one, because the ‘refining’ of His chosen people to become ‘holy’ like ‘pure gold’ at His standard will take time.
“Israel is dead in God’s eyes” and “her mistakes no longer matter” are difficult concepts for me to understand. Are you a Christian who believes that you no longer need to repent because Jesus already paid the price of all your sins? Jesus demanded most of the seven churches (Rev 2-3) to repent though.
I agree with your pessimistic view – in the current state of the Church, very few non-Jews may be saved in the end. I once thought that all Bible-believing Christians would hear Jesus say, ‘Well done…’, but the Spirit said many of them are like the five maids who didn’t have sufficient oil (understanding) – believing in Replacement theology etc.
Oil = Holy Spirit (which most have not received); nothing to do with understanding.
One starts following Yeshu by dying and being resurrected, which occurs through water and Spirit immersion. Once the “old man” is dead, the person’s law violations are no longer imputed to them (and naturally, a regenerate person won’t wallow in sin but may slip at times). The Law of
Moses is valid but it cannot condemn a corpse.
“Those of us who have been immersed into the Messiah Yeshua have been immersed into his death […] our old self was put to death […] we died with the Messiah (Rom 6:3, 6, 8).”
Yet, even a born again person can forfeit their salvation through gross sin, idolatry, and no repentance. In that case Thus, though the Torah cannot condemn the person, the Messiah himself will do so (because he knows our walk).
Israel/Jewry is a different cup of tea. The story of Joseph who typifies the Messiah, shows that: all of Jewry will be saved.
What I understood then was that “oil” is the source of Light – the Scriptural and Spiritual source that testifies about the Lord Jesus. So those who have an insufficient amount of oil are lacking understanding about who Jesus really is and what He is doing right now.
The teaching of Paul in Romans that you quoted is one thing, and Paul’s struggle with the law of sin is another. Obvious sins such as the ones in the Ten Commandments are relatively easy for us not to commit, but we all are far from “perfect” in the eyes of the Lord. Let us be careful not to fall into the trap of self-righteousness.
As said, it has nothing to do with our understanding (but that is likely spread on diabolic “Christian” websites).
To be saved, a person must receive the Holy Spirit, which is a tangible event. A VESSEL WITH A LAMP is a clear reference to A MAN WITH A SPIRIT:
“The human spirit is a lamp of Yahweh” (Prov 20:27).
As oil is poured into a lamp, so Spirit is poured into a spirit (Rom 5:5, 2 Cor4:6–7, Ezek 36:27)
The normal thing is that you start speaking in tongues.
Yeshu’s sacrifice secured the Promise of the Father (outpouring of the Spirit), that was the whole point. As the Temple on Shavuot 2,000 years ago was filled with the Spirit, so your human temple needs to be filled.
Unless folk are immersed in water and “fire” (Holy Spirit), they won’t be saved (Jn 3:3-5, Acts 2:38).
Cont. You are right in pointing out that the people of Israel are treated by God completely differently to Gentiles, as you say, since 1948.
It’s time for the God of Judeo-Christianity and the forever Messiah King of the Jews, Yeshua, to restore His Chosen People. And as the Former commanded to the Latter in Isaiah 49:6, it is the Lord Yeshua who is doing the job of gathering the remnant and refining them through the “fires”, which is much harder, even brutal, than merely demanding repentance, until they become a truly Holy People of the Holy God.
As you said somewhere, it’s time for the Christians to stop demanding Jewish people to accept Jesus – He will reveal Himself to them in due course.
G-d has always dealt different with the Jewish people. He blinded them, by and large, to extend the New Covenant to the Gentiles. Had the vast majority of Jews not rejected the Messiah, not a single non-Jew could be saved.
Yeshu is NOT refining the Jewish people; they went through the fire for 2, 500 years.
The Jewish people will all embrace Yeshu at the Parousia, which is also the time when most non-Jews will be destroyed, including those with no oil in their lamps.
Just to be clear, Yeshu is NOT G-d.
The pattern of the Tanach was repeated on the 7th Oct. Is Israel denies the existence of the G-D of Israel, and turns to foreign gods, He Hashem will withdraw his hand of protection. See Zephaniah chapter 1.(and in many other parts of the Tanach).
That’s utter nonsense.
I never consider the word of HaShem to be nonsense, just at times a challenge to understand it ?
Yes, same here.
The Lord didn’t promise to keep us out of the fiery trials of life, but He did promise to go through them with us. The majority of Jews, just like the majority of gentiles, don’t think about the Lord, until they need Him.
Oct. 7 was allowed to make Israel invade Gaza and thereby drawing all the nations/Gentiles against her. We’re only waiting for an international escalation (Russia, Iran, Turkey, etc.).