When "the people say", be careful what you're saying

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day, so I will remember.

I will remember all those conversations and articles and sermons in which I was told that all those horrendous things happened to Jews because they forgot their God. The compassionate ones from the audiences would be sad, but it appeared to be of common accord that this should be a "warning sign" to us all and in a way, Jews got what they deserved for disobeying. 

I know this is a terribly uncomfortable subject, but I am not known for writing about comfortable things. So let me start by saying that it is literally a paradox to say that a Jew can forget his God and his inheritance. They open their eyes by thanking God they woke up, they thank God when they wash their hands, at their weddings they recite "If I forget you, Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning", they do this because they still mourn the destruction of the Temple of God. And these are just a few examples. 

This blog is mainly addressed to my Christian brothers, and I am writing this particular posting, because I want to raise another "warning sign" which you may or may not wish to take into consideration. It's up to you...

I will start with the story of Job. Most of us know it. He is tested by God, loses everything including all his children and when at the bottom of his world, on top of everything else, he has his wife telling him to curse God and die, and his best friends lecturing him on what he must have done wrong to deserve such a terrible tragedy. Now don't get me wrong, I read the book many times and I must admit if taken separately, all the things that his friends say are good and make perfect sense and basically tell Job that God is good and just and he must have messed up, otherwise this would not have happened. At the same time, in his crisis, Job has a permanent argument with God and asks God to explain Himself. Still, at the end of the book, when God does come, He basically tells Job "who are you to question Me?" Some of the things He says are "Would you say that I am unfair? Would you blame Me to make yourself look right? Job 40:8, NCV, and again "No one has ever given Me anything that I must pay back. Everything under heaven belongs to Me." Job 41:11, NCV
If left at this stage, you would probably start thinking God is unfair and He was unjust to Job. But, guess what? In the end, God turned around to Job's friends and tells one of the friends "I am angry with you and your two friends. This is because you have not said what is right about Me. But My servant Job did." Job 42:7 And He repeats that, just in case the three friends did not hear Him at first because of the shock. The story ends with "And the Lord listened to Job's prayer." Job 42:9b

There are so many passages in the Bible, in which God warns Israel "If you turn to other gods this is what will happen to you." One example is when Solomon completed the first Temple and invited God to come and "live" in it. God agreed and came, but he warned Solomon with the same warning, "This Temple is honoured now, but then, everyone who passes by will be shocked. They will ask, ‘Why did the Lord do this terrible thing to this land and this Temple?’  People will answer, ‘This happened because they left the Lord, the God of their ancestors, the God who brought them out of Egypt. They decided to follow other gods and worshiped and served them, so he brought all this disaster on them.'" 2 Chronicles 7:21-22

“Then the people will say”, “Then the people will answer”…I read this many times, and asked myself who are these people? I came to understand that it is us, the gentiles. Throughout this history, whether we liked it or not, we’ve gravitated around the relationship between God and Israel, and somehow we felt entitled to justify what we did to them because of God.

I think the moral of the story here and the point I trying to make, is this- people might say, but you be careful if you join them. You might quote scriptures while you do it, but so did Job’s friends. Be careful while you do this not to find yourself in the wrong camp, and have your God not very happy with your position. Every gram of human compassion makes one try to defend a person when they are down at the bottom of the pit, we don’t go and kick them further, or even worse, crush them. But that is what we’ve done to Israel throughout the ages. You might not like to hear this, but it is the truth. We like to quote their verses and their promises, but remember something, one of the same verses of theirs says, “He who guards Israel never slumbers, nor sleeps.” Psalm 121:4

They no longer need us to protect them, their God made them a strong nation again, but in days like today, they still mourn what we did to them. So if you cannot encourage them and support them, as a Christian, at least don’t unite with the rest of the world when they go against them. If “the people say”, you keep quiet. Our ancestors had no qualms with keeping quiet when 6 million of them were murdered indiscriminately. If you don’t want to pay attention to me, listen to Apostle Paul, go and read Romans 11 again, and whilst you do, I challenge you to imagine how ridiculous a branch is that turns around to the tree and asserts it is more important than the tree. Don’t judge them, because you might be wrong and not realise Who you’re messing up with.



"Jeremiah, have you heard what the people are saying? They say: ‘The Lord turned away from the two families of Israel and Judah that he chose.’ Now they don’t think of my people as a nation anymore!”This is what the Lord says: “If I had not made my agreement with day and night, and if I had not made the laws for the sky and earth,  only then would I turn away from Jacob’s descendants. And only then would I not let the descendants of David my servant rule over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But I will be kind to them and cause good things to happen to them again.” Then young women of Israel will be happy and dance, the young men and old men also.
I will change their sadness into happiness; I will give them comfort and joy instead of sadness. Jeremiah 33:24-26, 31:13