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The Challenge of the Jews – Week 11 / March 9th
“For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance
will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s
house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the
kingdom for such a time as this?”
Esther 4:14
On the eve of Purim the Prime Minister of Israel, Benyamin Netanyahu, at the invitation of Congress, addressed the American people and the world on the dangers Israel and the world will face if Iran is given a pathway to obtaining nuclear weapons. The festival of Purim records the heroic deeds of Esther 2500 years ago when she intervened to save her people from certain destruction in Persia at the instigation of Haman; the vicious Persian anti-Semite. Today the Persians of Iran are again plotting for and planing the destruction of Israel. They affirm this almost every month and have led the P5+ 1 nations down the road of artful deception as they have rapidly worked towards nuclear weaponization. The folly of the west in this regard has been laid bare for all to see as one dead-line after another has been extended giving the Mullahs of Tehran more time to advance their wicked schemes. Bibi Netanyahu rightly called them out for their weak and dangerous engagement with Iran. In fact he has done this for years. The “day of reckoning” has however now arrived and it appears that a deal will be made by the end of March that, as Netanyahu said, will pave the way to a nuclear armed Iran. This is truly catastrophic and if true brings the world to a place of impending conflict and upheaval.
This conflict is really spiritual in nature since the nation of Israel is the custodian of the will and purpose of God in the world. That is, in a world that is essentially filled with darkness and evil and that ” lies in the power of the evil one”, as the Apostle John put it in his first epistle. The Jews have from Abraham onwards challenged the darkness of this world and have therefore been in un-ending conflict with it. Balaam, though attempting to curse Israel, recognized that they were indeed a “a people apart” from the other nations of the world and greatly blessed of God. This”apartness” of Israel will either draw one to her in love and support or provoke hatred and antagonism against her. Pastor Niemoller, the second world war preacher in Germany, recognized this truth when he said, “They came for the trade unionists and I was not a trade unionist and so said nothing, they came for the communists and I was not a communist and so said nothing, the came for the Catholics but I was not a Catholic and so said nothing, they came for the Jews and I was not a Jew and so said nothing and then they came for me and there was no one left to speak.”
Another commentator on the long road of suffering that the Jews have walked through the centuries has written the following about the challenge they have placed before the world and, in the main, the worlds antagonism to it; ” We at first said you cannot live amongst us as Jews, then we said you cannot live amongst us and finally we said, you cannot live!” The nation of Israel reminds the world of God and that it is sinful and in need of repentance. This never ending challenge in the main engenders hatred and rejection especially if the Jews continue to live and thrive in spite of every attempt to destroy them. This “living Israel” casts doubt over every other religious movement, like that of Islam in particular because it claims a superior revelation, and this can only be proved and substantiated if Israel is liquidated; it cannot and will not be destroyed. Jesus said, “Salvation is of the Jews” and Jeremiah the prophet proclaimed that Israel will exist before God just as long as the sun, moon and stars are in the skies above us.The challenge of the Jews will thus continue and reach a place of desperation and the Ayatollahs of Iran have now reached this place and have decided that an apocalyptic battle with Israel must be played out to safeguard the integrity of Islam. It is chiefly for this reason that they wish to acquire a nuclear weapon, and they have said as much. The weak and gullible west is facilitating their thirst for Armageddon and Israel’s Prime Minister gave solemn warning of this in his speech to the two houses of Congress this week. The response to this speech has thus far been one of hysterical opposition and one of applause and approval but the antagonists are sadly those dealing with Iran and so the outcome will be ominous, I fear.
And so the challenge of the Jews continues and has now been heightened as it will impact the whole world. Another writer this last week stated that as far as he sees it, whether Israel is right or wrong is irrelevant as her existence has now “become a nuisance” and threat to world peace. In other words, the Jews should not be allowed to live and the world would be better off without them!
The situation in the Middle East is a very dangerous one and appears to be insolvable. My friends the God of Israel will step in and solve it just as He did at Purim 2500 years ago and of this we must have no doubt. He has used the challenge of the Jews to ripen the nations for judgment and to prepare those who have embraced it with love and thankfulness for blessing. We must therefore pray for our nations and their leaders as never before and we must pray for Israel because she is no nuisance but in fact the hope of the world because by and through her modern day restoration great joy will soon come to the all the peoples of the world. This is so because the God of the Jews will soon put His King on His holy hill in Zion, despite the raging of the nations, and in that day the nations will learn war no more and finally live together in peace.
Malcolm Hedding
©Malcolm Hedding Ministries
2015Devotional