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For I am not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ. For it is the power of God unto
salvation, to every one that believeth, to the Jew first,
and also to the Greek. Shalom and welcome to the Everlasting
Nation broadcast, a radio ministry of International Board of Jewish
Missions in Hickson, Tennessee. Now here's your host, IBJM Ministries
Director, John Lawrence. Greetings, dear friends, and
thank you for joining us today. We appreciate your tuning in
to our program. I am John Lawrence, the Director
of Ministries here at IBJM and your host today. We have been
talking about anti-Semitism in France, and we've been talking
of all the kinds of things that are happening in France these
days that have moved the needle of anti-Semitism in the wrong
direction. We had finished last time by
talking about French migration, which is, in 2013 and now again
this year, is considerably higher than it's ever been before. That
is, French Jewish people leaving the country, particularly for
Israel. A 30-year-old medical equipment
specialist said, we've been thinking about moving for a long time,
but the climate was not as dangerous as it seems to be now. So he
said, we have decided to move to Israel in July, that's this
month, with his wife and three children. He declined to give
his name out of fear for his family's security. He added,
it bothers me because this is not normal. This is not how I
remember France when I was growing up. He indicated that this kind
of a situation should not be. Two weeks ago, this same young
man woke up to find his 13-year-old daughter, Michelle, crying. After
a recent attack on two Jewish boys not far from her school,
she said she was too afraid to join her regular carpool. Instead,
she demanded that he take her to school and also pick her up,
standing guard as she entered and came out each day. He's moved
his work schedule around in order to accommodate her request. Asked
what she was scared of, Michelle, his daughter, looked down and
said, I'm afraid that what happened in Toulouse will happen at my
school too. I hear what people say about
Jews. and now I am scared." Of course, several years ago in
Toulouse, there was a shooting that killed a number of Jewish
people. Enter Jeudonné. That's the comedian. He comes into the situation again,
and he is inflaming through his comic act these kinds of sentiments. He was born in the Cameroon and
came from a family that included a Cameroon father and a white
French mother. And he rose to stardom back in
the 90s as actually part of a duo act with a man by the name of
Ellie Simone. who is a Jewish comedian. But
the two became quite estranged as Giordane's humor became almost
indistinguishable from anti-Semitic diatribes. They separated as
a result. Throughout the 2000s, he was
repeatedly fined, actually, because this stuff is a crime in France,
in theory, and he was fined for making a variety of anti-Semitic
statements that are against the law. including his description
of the Holocaust as memorial porn. Blacklisted from mainstream
television shows and also from radio, he nevertheless thrives
with a cult-like following on stage and also via the Internet. Over the years, observers say,
his depictions have sharply worsened. They have become almost obscene. His act became so offensive that
the French government in January took the rare step of encouraging
local jurisdictions to actually bar his performances. The move
forced him to tone down his material sum, largely by deploying inference
and shorthand to get his nonetheless obvious point across. Giordane
declined to comment, but his lawyer insisted that rather than
being anti-Semitic, the comedian was simply speaking truth to
power. Kind of scary. If the Portuguese
were protected in France, and had big influence, he said, then
he would protest the Portuguese. But as it is, there are others
who fit that description. And of course, the others, by
implication, are the Jewish people. A dangerous situation in France
and in Europe today. God bless you. Thank you for
joining us. And now let's listen to Brother Mark Oshman as he
shares today's Bible study with us. Welcome to another Radio
Bible Study. In this session, we will look
at the greatest romance of the ages, God's abiding love for
the Jewish nation. In the first chapter of Malachi,
God told the Jewish audience, quote, I have loved you, unquote. They challenged this assertion
by asking him, quote, wherein hast thou loved us, unquote.
After a millennium of living in a confident relationship with
the Supreme Being, those representatives of the Jewish nation dare ask
God to prove that he loved them. Over the next few moments, we
will address that question. Out of all other nations on earth
that God could have chosen, God decided to select a man who was
bred in the heart of pagan idolatry. That man named Abraham. became
the progenitor of God's chosen people. Abraham was by no means
a flawless individual, as even a cursory reading of his life
story indicated. Yet, God entered into covenant
relationships with him and with his descendants. Out of all of
the nations in the ancient Middle East, according to Jewish tradition,
the Jews alone vowed to accept God's law. However, biblical
history unveils the extent to which they observed, or rather
failed to observe, those precepts. Less than six weeks after God
visited the Jewish nation on Mount Sinai, they rejected the
leadership of both God and Moses. Throughout their wilderness sojourns,
the Jews murmured and complained about the divine direction. Toward
the end of his life, Moses even stated that the Israelites had
rebelled against their Lord. from the day he first knew them.
Divine revelation left no mystery as to the reasons underlying
God's selection of the Jews. In the seventh chapter of Deuteronomy,
he exclaimed, quote, But because the Lord loved you,
and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto
your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and
redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of
Pharaoh, king of Egypt." In the book of Exodus, God had told
the Jewish nation that he would be an adversary to their adversaries,
provided that they obeyed him. A panoramic view of history will
confirm the extent to which God kept his end of the bargain.
He had swept their ancient enemies, Assyrians, Babylonians, Grecians,
Romans. God had swept the Jewish people's
ancient enemies into the wastebasket of history. Those nations no
longer exist, but the Jewish state of Israel continues to
flourish. Consider also how God foiled
the insidious plot of Haman, to exterminate the Jews in the
Persian Empire, as recorded in the Book of Esther. By delivering
the Jewish people from their proposed destruction, God proved
himself faithful to the promise he had made about cursing those
who cursed Abraham. Moreover, Haman the villain of
the peace, literally became hoist by his own petard. That is to
say, hanged from the neck until dead. In the 121st Psalm, the
author asserted that, quote, he that keepeth Israel shall
neither slumber nor sleep, unquote. Both ancient and modern historical
accounts support the veracity of that statement. During the
times of Malachi, the Jewish people were scarcely a century
removed from a 70-year period of exile in Babylon. Under the
relatively benign oversight of their Persian overlords, the
Jews enjoyed a certain degree of political autonomy. They rebuilt
their temple, restored the walls of Jerusalem, and reinstituted
a number of previously abandoned religious practices, such as
the offering of sacrifices. Even after the times of Malachi,
God continued to watch over his people. Rome proved to be the
harshest taskmaster that Israel would ever know. In spite of
cruel imperial Roman persecutions and the second dispersion of
Jews across the face of the earth, the Jewish nation still maintained
its identity as a separate people. Indeed, Judaic scholastic study
flourished in the decades immediately after the armies of Titus destroyed
Jerusalem and burnt the temple. With the rise of Islam in the
Middle East, Northern Africa, and Southern Spain, Jews received
a degree of toleration, albeit as a subject peoples. However,
the time came when Jews, such as Moses Maimonides, had to flee
for their lives from growing Muslim oppression in Spain. The
Jewish people suffered greatly in Europe during medieval times.
During the 14th century Black Plague, crowds accused them of
poisoning the city wells. Many Jews died from these false
charges. European rulers encouraged and permitted numerous mob outbreaks
against the Jews in their midst. Throughout the European continent,
monarchs expelled Jews from their territories. Renaissance Italy
would see the rise of the first ghetto, into which authorities
forcibly herded their Jewish populations into a small area.
having limited access. Despite these things, however,
the Jewish people continued to thrive. In the 31st chapter of
Jeremiah, God went on record as stating that the existence
of the Jewish people would outlast even the natural phenomena. Quote,
Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and
the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night,
which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar. The Lord
of hosts is his name. If those ordinances depart from
before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall
cease from being a nation before me forever." Before the Jewish
people would cease to exist, God said, the sun, the moon,
and the stars would have to disappear. The seas, comprising about 3
quarters of the Earth's surface, would have to evaporate before
the nation of Israel vanishes. What does this statement imply
about God's preservation of the Jewish people? God regarded all
of the nations as, quote, a drop in the bucket, unquote, in comparison
to Israel, according to the 40th chapter of Isaiah. Nevertheless,
he sought to make his name known among the Gentiles through the
Jews. God determined to use the Jewish nation as a means of ministering
to the Gentiles. In the 60th chapter of Isaiah,
he declared that, quote, the darkness shall cover the earth
and gross darkness the people. But the Lord shall arise upon
thee and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall
come to thy light and kings to the brightness of thy rising,
unquote. He would accomplish that objective through his servant.
Isaiah had much to record about the subject of God's servant.
Sometimes in the book of Isaiah, the servant would refer to the
nation of Israel itself. At other times, it would refer
to the promised coming Messiah. According to Isaiah chapter 2,
The prophet exclaimed, quote, and it shall come to pass in
the last days that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be
established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted
above the hills, and nations shall flow unto it. God also
stated, quote, behold my servant whom I uphold, mine elect in
whom my soul delighteth. I have put my spirit upon him.
He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. This reference
to the promised Messiah is recorded in Isaiah chapter 42. In Isaiah
chapter 49, God added this statement, quote, it is a lightening that
thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to restore the preserved of Israel. I will also give thee
as a light to the Gentiles that thou mayest be my salvation until
the end of the earth, unquote. The Jewish people believe that
the servant in Isaiah only depicted the Jewish nation as an entity. After all, Israel should remain
as God's peculiar people throughout the ages. However, that entity
has too often endeavored to become like its pagan neighbors. In
the days of King Manasseh of Judah, for example, Offering
children as sacrifices to Molech was a common practice in that
nation. God cannot, indeed will not, use an unholy instrument
to accomplish his holy purposes. In contrast, Christians regard
Jesus Christ as the servant mentioned by Isaiah. The Gospels bear record
of the Savior's extensive ministry to Gentiles. such as a Roman
centurion. They also record how his followers
expanded the extent of his outreach. Christians cite the words of
the Apostle Paul, written in Romans chapter 11, about how
God engrafted the Gentiles with the Jews. to form a new organization
known as the church. In that way, non-Jews can enjoy
the same spiritual privileges as Jews enjoy. God's love story
with Israel has no end. He loved the Jewish nation from
its inception. He continues to watch over it
today. He will serve as its protector in the future. Therefore, no
Jew has any reason whatsoever to ask God, quote, wherein hast
thou loved us, unquote. Thank you for listening to this
program. We invite you to return for future radio Bible studies. You've been listening to the
Everlasting Nation broadcast, a radio ministry of International
Board of Jewish Missions. For more information, you can
write us at P.O. Box 1386, Hickson, Tennessee,
37343. Or call us at 423-876-8150. Or you may also go online at
ibjm.org. Until next time, may God bless and shalom.
God Loves The Jews
Series Single Series
In this program we discuss the fact that God loves the Jewish people. Also, we continue our look at the rise of antisemitism in France.
| Sermon ID | 871495443 |
| Duration | 14:59 |
| Date | |
| Category | Radio Broadcast |
| Bible Text | Malachi 1:2 |
| Language | English |
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