THE HOLOCAUST

At this time, in 1995, we are currently going through the 50th. anniversaries of the liberation of survivors from the concentration camps of WW2 Europe, located within Germany, Poland, Austria and Czechoslovakia. Six million Jews , plus many other political prisoners and minority peoples died in these camps in the period 1933-1945.

There are many people who can still remember with horror, the scenes of emaciated survivors and huge piles of naked corpses shown in the Press, at the infamous camps, such as Belsen, Dachau, Auschwitz and Treblinka. They had been abducted from their homes and treated like slaughtered animals.

WHY THE SUFFERING?

Why did the Jews suffer in this way? To answer this question let us go back in time to the establishment of the people of Israel as a nation, with the promise of God to the patriarch Abraham....."And I will make of thee a great nation"..(Gen 12:2). Thus the descendants of Abraham came out of Egypt as a nation and were delivered by God, from destruction at the Red Sea. He led them to Mount Sinai where he spoke to them through Moses, explaining that He had chosen them to be a special people through whom His great Name was to be sanctified....."For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth." (Deut.7:6)

THE ISRAELITES MADE A COVENANT WITH GOD:

That covenant is described in unbelievable detail in Deuteronomy 28, with solemn warnings........

"But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes......that all these curses shall come upon thee and overtake thee.." (Deut.28:15) There follows 28 verses packed with pronouncements of judgements the Father would bring upon them if they did not heed the commandments of the Lord.

In verse 64 God promises to scatter Israel amongst all nation and in verse 65 He tells them that..."among these nations thou shalt find no ease" and in verse 66..."And thy life shall hang in doubt; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life."

Unhappily, they broke their part of the bargain by being unfaithful to God by serving idols and the judgements of verses 64 to 66 became a sad reality.

HIS BLOOD BE UPON US:

Ultimately, the punishment and banishment began at the hands of the Assyrians and the Babylonians, but, they then added one more dreadful sin to their history by rejecting their Messiah, Jesus the Christ, the Son of God. In their own words, they brought a terrible sentence upon themselves...."His blood be upon us and on our children"...(Mat.27-25). Within 40 years Jerusalem was destroyed ...hundreds of thousands of Jews killed and the balance sold into slavery. So their persecutions began:-

THE CRUSADES - Jews impoverished and sold as chattels.

THE REFORMATION. - Luther initiates Jewish persecutions.

THE INQUISITION. - Jews persecuted, killed and banished.

THE GHETTOS - Jews confined within selected areas by most European nations.

THE POGROMS - Jews made the victims of almost incessant pogroms, particularly in Russia and Hungary, in the 1870's.

WARSAW - Jewish uprising suppressed and thousands massacred

THE CAMPS - Mass extermination of Jews between 1933-1945

WAS THIS TO BE THE END OF GOD'S PEOPLE.?......

BY NO MEANS! Look at these vitally important Bible passages and...the answer is before you......

" Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, UNTIL the TIMES OF THE GENTILES BE FULFILLED"..(Luke 21:24)

"Tho I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, YET WILL I NOT MAKE A FULL END OF THEE"..(Jer 30:11)

"He that scattered Israel WILL GATHER HIM and keep him"....(Jer 31:10)

AFTER WORLD WAR 2:

Read all of Ezekiel 37, which describes the total regathering of God's people to their own land from all over the world. After WW2 the Jews of Europe flooded back to the land of Israel and with God's help re-established their nation against impossible odds, having been literally driven home by the ... HOLOCAUST.