Rescue

 

Rescue those who are being taken away to death;

hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.

If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,”

does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?

Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it,

and will he not repay man according to his work?

Proverbs 24:11-12 ESV

 

Although I prefer to focus on God’s word, inevitably, it has things to say about what’s going on in the world nowadays. I want to address the rise in anti-Semitism nowadays. I don’t think I or other Christians can or should stay silent on this issue.

 

Most Germans in the late 1930s and early 1940s weren’t Nazis. Yet by failing to speak out against Nazi ideology and actions, they became enablers of genocide. We mustn’t allow history to repeat itself.

 

Martin Niemoller, a German pastor who was imprisoned by the Nazis, has a famous quote about different groups of people the Nazis persecuted, but he remained silent. Then they came after him, and there was no-one left to speak up for him. Sadly, there are plenty of neo-Nazis nowadays who would gladly see Israel wiped off the map and the Jewish people annihilated.

 

Israel has a right to defend herself (and of course a responsibility to minimise civilian casualties, which she is largely seeking to do). The Islamist death cult of Hamas have no right to annihilate the Jews, and they have no right to use their own people as human shields. As Christians we need to be discerning and read between the lines of what the media is feeding us.

 

‘Heavenly Father, may we speak up not just for persecuted Christians, but for other oppressed peoples, especially the Jews, who are suffering an outpouring of anti-Semitism. May the people of the Lord Jesus Christ turn to Him as their Messiah, in His name, amen’